As Craig points out in his most recent post, “Let’s Move On From Boris,” he says that, “The problem with this slogan is it does not have a good history.” Murray reminds us that, “When a politician is desperate enough to use the “move on” slogan, you know they have done something very wrong indeed and are in big trouble.” It was a thought-provoking warning of all the times we have been conned into accepting this excuse not to uncover the truth, correct injustice or try to learn from our mistakes. Craig poses a really amusing example “I think I’ll rob a bank to get some campaign funds… Hey, let’s move on… What is important is that we all come together now and get behind the really great things I’m going to do with the money!” In a New Statesman Article Martin Fletcher is emphatic in his condemnation and his message to the PM, writing, “If Dominic Cummings is not sacked, Boris Johnson’s government will lose all remaining credibility. A weary public will not forgive the egregious hypocrisy of the Prime Minister’s chief strategist.”
But less than one week has passed before Johnson has launched an audacious crusade to declare the matter closed, in the expectation that the British public will just, you guessed it, “move on!” This tactic has worked so well for him in the past, following many of the PM’s cowardly attempts to dodge scrutiny and silence detractors, but this transgression has touched a raw nerve with everyone who has made such huge personal sacrifices to abide by the restrictions of lockdown. Even the normally compliant right-wing media have refused to let the matter drop. In the midst of a national crisis and, I hasten to add, a time of rapidly declining readership, the tabloid press have realized that they might need to champion the cause of outraged and aggrieved citizens who have been deluging their MP’s mail boxes with complaints over the retention of Dominic Cummings.
As if we needed reminding of how much Cummings has managed to warp our political agenda in just a few short months Fletcher elaborates, “As one of Johnson’s first prime ministerial appointments last summer, Cummings purged moderate Tory MPs, championed a no-deal Brexit to pressure Brussels, persuaded Johnson to prorogue parliament, sidelined Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party and crafted both the ‘people vs parliament’ narrative and the assault on Labour’s northern seats that delivered Johnson’s spectacular general election victory last December.” On the last point re the Covert 2019 Rigged Election result Cummings evil manipulation subjected the public to military grade PsyOps and he also deployed his Voter Intentions Collection System, ViCS, to harvest data from the population to create the Situational Awareness that was required to achieve industrial scale fraud via the postal votes. Visit the Daily GasLamp post entitled, “Index to the The Daily GasLamp” for a clear explanation of these issues.
Much of what Dominic Cummings did with regard to the Covert 2019 Rigged Election remains within a high-tech gray area that still remains difficult to prosecute, but exposing the stolen ballots could bring down the Government. The attempt to understand the extent of these unhealthy forays into manipulative brainwashing of our population were thwarted when Cummings point blank refused to testify to the Government Select Committee for Culture, Media and Sport; sadly for our democracy there was no way to compel him to attend. However, when Dominic Cummings decides to dispence discipline he is absolutely ruthless in his US style grotesquely humiliating firing tactics. There was no defence, no recourse to justice and no mercy when he accused Sajid Javid’s Special Adviser, Sonia Khan’s, of leaking information, stripped her of two mobile phones and had her marched out in disgrace surrounded by armed police officers! The Guardian reported that painfully humiliated Khan may have a case for unfair dismissal.
This classic “walk of shame” removal is an aggressive bullying tactic intended to terrify colleagues into compliant, obedient silence. It can be used effectively to falsely criminalize Whistleblowers, deliberately removing them from all contact with former co-workers and casting a dark shadow over their future employment. There is zero dignity in this brutal exit, as I know from suffering this fate myself while working at Johns Hopkins in the US. Believe me all these “business friendly” strong-arm measures will be imported faster than chlorinated chicken after December’s crash-out Brexit strips away all of our EU employment rights to fast-track worker exploitation. Boris Johnson, Gove and others are trying their best to portray Dominic Cummings as a conscientious, loving father acting in the best interests of his young son, but this man has proven himself absolutely devoid of compassion or even the slightest scintilla of sympathy for the plight of those who do not share his “above the law” privileged status.
Fletcher expounded further on the control Boris Johnson’s Chief Adviser had exerted since his appointment saying: “…Cummings has bent cabinet ministers to his will, co-opted their advisers, driven strategy, and declared war on the BBC, civil service and judiciary. He has been the driving force behind an essentially idle prime minister, his eyes and ears, his enforcer, his problem solver, his helmsman.” However, we didn’t vet his appointment, we certainly didn’t vote for him and this latest escapade has clearly demonstrated that he is completely unaccountable and considers himself above the law. Fletcher describes Cummings thus, “He is the animating spirit of Johnson’s government. Without him, the Prime Minister would be like a dummy without its ventriloquist, a puppet without its puppeteer.“ As if this trail of devastation and inappropriate influence were not enough expecting the public to condone his flouting the very restrictions he has forced us all to live by is the last straw: we need him out!
Fletcher wrote that, “Cummings’s only conceivable defence is that the rules he helped draft were unclear – except they were not. Certainly his wife had contracted Covid-19, and there was a fair chance he would, too (especially if he sat in a car with her for five hours), but by no stretch of the imagination did his family’s predicament in March constitute an “extreme threat to life”. Social Distancing requires people to isolate from other family member even when sharing minimal living space, not cram into a car on mass! Fletcher reminds us of how much our expectation of integrity has been eroded by this Government when he writes that, “Under no other prime minister in living memory would Cummings be allowed to stay in his post, but this scandal has ripped the mask off this government’s face. It has exposed its true nature – its shamelessness, its arrogance, its deceitfulness, its contempt for ‘the people’ that it claims to champion, the utter cravenness of its ministers.”
Vociferous condemnation of Boris Johnson’s for his spineless, weak-minded support for a dangerously out-of-control subordinate has come from all sides of the political divide as a growing number of even the most loyal Tory MPs spoke out. In response to a deluge of angry letters and emails from constituents they are now clamouring for Cummings to go. The Guardia reported that, “Tory anger at Dominic Cummings grows as 61 MPs defy Boris Johnson – MPs break ranks to criticise PM’s chief of staff, with 44 calling for him to quit or be sacked. At an appearance before the liaison committee of senior MPs, Johnson declined to answer most questions about Cummings, saying repeatedly it was time to “move on”. But his pleas fell flat as Javid, who stood down as chancellor after clashing with Cummings, joined the list of those criticising the No 10 aide.”
According to an Article in the Express focusing on the UK’s readiness to ease lockdown restrictions, “Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Munira Wilson has criticised the easing of lockdown.” She said: ” The decision by key members of Sage to go public with their concerns shows that ministers are no longer following the science. The test, trace, isolate system that we need to keep people safe is not yet fully functional. The NHSX app is delayed for an unknown period. For seven days straight the Government has been unable to provide even basic data about the number of people tested. On top of these failings, public health messaging has been badly undermined as people see it’s one rule for the Tory elite and another for everyone else. Given this chaos, measures to lift lockdown appear premature.”
In the Guardian Editorial, “The Guardian view on easing the lockdown: putting politics before people,” they say, “Boris Johnson wants to lift the Covid-19 restrictions because of ideology and self-interest. The people deserve a more careful, evidence-based approach.” They say that, “This week’s virus tracing measures in England are the latest example of this shambolic approach. Mr Johnson said on 20 May that a “world beating” system to test and trace for coronavirus would be in place by 1 June. Easing the lockdown is umbilically linked to the need for such a system. Without it the dangers of a second wave of cases are very real. This is chaos waiting to happen.” I would call it more “chest beating” than “world beating,” but they add the underlying justification for such haste, “Mr Johnson’s eagerness is driven not just by his generally slapdash approach but also by his desperation to drown out the Cummings scandal. It seems all too likely that he will fail on both fronts, combining a mismanaged easing, which risks causing a spike in Covid-19 cases, with a stupid and damaging attempt to keep Mr Cummings in post.”
A Guardian Article written at the time of Sonia Khan’s traumatic firing said that, “In a meeting on Friday night with Boris Johnson’s team of special advisers – known as spads – Cummings is said to have remarked: ‘If you don’t like how I run things, there’s the door’.” It also noted that, “Yvette Cooper, the Labour chair of the Commons home affairs select committee, said: ‘Government advisers must not abuse their power by drawing the police into heavy-handed political stunts. This needs to be reviewed by the cabinet secretary and the Metropolitan police straight away.’ There was outrage surrounding Cummings’ move to fire Khan last Thursday, with No 10 described as operating amid a “climate of fear”. The prime minister also faces being summoned to the Commons on Monday to answer an urgent question on the handling of the case.” It is high time we gave Boris Johnson’s vicious, vindictive and manipulative Chief Adviser a taste of his own vile medicine by showing Dominic Cummings the door!
In reality, we want this entire evil Tory Government not just removed from power, but facing robust scrutiny for appalling decisions that they knew would cost lives, including those who died due to the unnecessary hardship of a decade of austerity, targeting of the disabled and the stripping of health and safety “red tape” that endangered us all: accountability is long overdue. The grotesque and unconscionable deception of claiming “borrowed votes” as the Tories plundered unsuspecting members of the working poor, in the forgotten North, of their election ballots to turn Labour’s proud “Red Wall” of support into this current grisly Tory “Red Ditch of Death:” a direct result of exploiting Covid 19 to “Slaughter the Sheeple!” As Craig writes in his post, “I presume you see the pattern here. If a politician tells you to “move on” from a subject, it is a gigantic red flag that you should do precisely the opposite.”
Imagine if Dominic Cummings was escorted out of number ten by two armed police officers, just as he has treated other potentially falsely accused “traitors” in the past. Pull on this one lose thread and the whole toxic pattern of Tory abuse, corruption, exploitation lies and deception could come unravelled. As I put to you only yesterday, with an angry and vengeful Dominic Cummings nursing a bruised ego, “as a potential Whistleblower he could provide the vital evidence necessary to support a full investigation into the Covert 2019 Rigged Election, but this Tory Government would be stripped of all legitimacy and forced from office without delay. We must seize this unique opportunity as it may represent the last chance to rescue our democracy. Only massive public pressure will keep this in the media and force the Government to risk their grip on power. DO NOT MOVE ON…”