The former education secretary and, if reports are to be believed, future knight Gavin Williamson has been named as the person who threatened Christian Wakeford, recently defecting MP, with withdrawal of funding for a new school in his constituency if he voted that disadvantaged children should continue to receive free school meals during the holidays in a pandemic.
The at the time EDUCATION SECRETARY threatened to withdraw funding for a much-needed SCHOOL if an MP voted to feed disadvantaged CHILDREN.
And Johnson wants to give this guy a knighthood.
It's generally accepted in parliament that the whips will blackmail you into voting with the government if they have any compromising material on you, and that this happens under any flavour of government.
This seems to be a new low though. The taxpayers in that constituency possibly losing out on funding for critical public services dependent on whether their MP toes the line? That's withdrawal of OUR money they're using as a threat.
And for the Education Secretary to have no qualms about dangling a school as a carrot/stick? What does that say about the quality of leadership in that particular cabinet that someone wholly unsuited to the role was kept in post so long? Oh yes, it's because, rumours have it, that Gavin Williamson has a notebook of kompromat on Boris himself.
This incident needs to be properly and independently investigated, and the whole system of whips bullying MPs into voting in a particular way needs to be binned. It's not how things should be done in a democratic society. If you can't persuade your own MPs vote for a piece of legislation then it doesn't deserve to go through.
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/51970b6c-7ba9-11ec-846f-fcbd721f9c02?shareToken=3eac611e72e4e4bed53c76f36da9d326
YABU: it is fine to use taxpayers' money to make MPs vote for abhorrent legislation.
YANBU: What the hell?