Westminstenders: Magical Thinking

[RedToothBrush]

This week has seen reports of the government editing footage of Johnson to avoid embarrassing questions about the early government response.

We've been asked to accept that the rules were different to what we were told to excuse the law breaking behaviour of a senior government advisor. As Johnson said he was being a responsible father (as if Johnson knows what this is) and it wasn't as if he was visiting a lover (this Johnson would know all about). Let's be honest Johnson is the master of brazening out controversy.

We also have the ERG complaining they were lied to by Gove about the new Withdrawal Agreement and the border in the Irish Sea which surprises precisely no one else.

They appear to be a little upset by the Cummings debarkable too.

OldLace .

PLEASE send that post to your MP. They need to know what reality looks like. And cc DC while you're at it.

OldLace 💐
You've had a horrendous and worrying time during lockdown - and you've kept to the rules.

In contrast to the manchild running home to mum , to avoid looking after his own child when his wife is ill

The 5 tests have already been altered once I think. I might be able to find the original and slightly reworded version on twitter somewhere.
Initially the last test was to avoid a second peak. It became avoiding a second peak that would overwhelm the nhs. I think there was another revision between those. So more than possible that they will revise them in other ways too.

It's worked every time in the past. It will work again now.

There are times when things stop working. Boris stuck on a zip wire - didn't affect anyone personally. Boris wasting taxpayers money on the garden bridge, new routemaster buses etc. - people didn't actually see the money being taken out of their bank accounts so it wasn't noticeable. Lying about Jennifer Acuri - or how many children he has - well no one is forcing us to sleep with him, so it's rather enjoyable tittle tattle, apart from the dodgy payments to her side of things, but then see my statement about bank accounts.

However, Cummings driving up and down to Durham while supposedly ill, when other people haven't been able to see grandparents or grandchildren, haven't been able to comfort sick and dying relatives, haven't been able to attend funerals, haven't had support for children, especially those with SEN, children not being able to go to school and having their exam preparation wrecked and their immediate futures compromised. Well, that's a whole lot more people directly affected; people who are very angry that they have been obeying the rules, for what they believed to be good reasons, and now find that they have been played for fools.

"Seems to be some difficulty in finding the source for the idea that DC's son is autistic"

Neither Cummings not BJ nor anyone else has actually stated that - it's all just rumours and hints

They can't be accused of lying if it's not true
but if they have a diagnosis and the heat really turns up, then they can hide behind a 4-year-old

I wonder how many parents of autistic children realised that the later "concessions" for them in the rules meant that they could travely 250 miles
If any were fined for travelling, they should appeal immediately

Spotted today on a wall in Barnard Castle:

They seem to be saying that there was no childcare given by family, just food dropped off
Their other family 10 minutes away in London could have done that

The track and trace was what SAGE said should be in place and what the education unions - perfectly reasonably, the militant bastards- asked for . I can't find it in the government's 5 years, though.

Another one with two disabled ( Autistic) (+ hypermobile, asthmatic, allergic) children and hypermobile myself which is approaching disability as I age...

Breathless, dry cough, couldn't get up much as breathing took all my energy, yet still looking after them. (one is old enough to survive quite well food and drink wise one was yelling and shouting and very distressed by my lack of energy)

PMK thanks Red - although this has ‘cut through’ and there is real anger out there, past experience tells me they will get away with it. And even if I’m wrong about, as Red and others point out there’s always rewriting history...

The govt have had 3 months to organise a track & trace system

They are fixed on centralisation and trying to find a magic iShiny App to do all the work

Only on 22 May did they finally accept that local government resoures are key to contact tracing,
e.g. the trained Environmental Health Officers
Let's hope this is geuninely new money, not taken from elsewhere in local govt

£300 million additional funding for local authorities to support new test and trace service

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/300-million-additional-funding-for-local-authorities-to-support-new-test-and-trace-service

Local authorities will be central to supporting the new test and trace service in England, with the government providing a new funding package of £300 million.

< btw, from the start, Germany has been contact tracing using the umpteen thousand local staff in their 400+ administrative districts, plus 20,000 new recruits have been trained.
It helped keep the number of new cases under control >

Saw the pics of Dom off to work this morning. He appears to have a Personal Protection Officer, who is presumably armed and authorised to shoot to kill.

Saw the pics of Dom off to work this morning. He appears to have a Personal Protection Officer, who is presumably armed and authorised to shoot to kill.

Just one ? Security theatre then.

Here we are. The circled bit is the revised softening of the wording.

You are right, track and trace doesn’t seem to be mentioned anywhere. It’s completely unforgivable that this isn’t in place yet. They’ve had months to sort it and everywhere else in Europe has had theirs up and running for weeks.

BlackeyedSusan - it's chuffing hard, isn't it? I am SO lucky I've not been affected by Covid type illness yet as both my kids have similar yet also different reactions (and set each other off too) and it's challenging to manage that even when at full power yourself. Are you feeling any better yet? I really hope you are!

BigChocFrenzy I didnt realise the later concessions meant long distance travel for those with kids with ASD was permissible? I read the initial document and I seem to remember that there was some reference to DNR type stuff for those with learning difficulties / ASD - there was a thread on MN about it - which WAS fairly quickly clarified / changed by Govt - but that upset me so much i didnt go back and read the official stuff later on. I did realise that I could then take them for a walk more than once a day, but by then they had the idea of a once a day only Boris Walk so firmly fixed that it has taken me till now to get that out of their heads, (ASD and teenage laziness!)

thank you for the comments re it being worth sending off my ramble.
I'm a classic working class failed at everything why would anyone in power listen to me type. But, Fuck It, I'm gonna do it!

OldLace: I'm a classic working class failed at everything why would anyone in power listen to me type

Because your MP is there to represent YOU. As a constituent, you have an equal right to be heard by your MP.

Do it! Do it! Do it!

This thing has definitely cut through - my mum, who is a floating voter and fairly apolitical, just rang me to tell me how angry she is.

She's 84 and she lives in a leafy Wiltshire village so i like to think she is a decent barometer of Middle England.

Dom's being made to walk the plank this afternoon. Cannot see how this is going to help his cause.

Cummings will be issuing a statement latter and taking questions from the press.

Whether he’ll answer those questions or not is a different matter.

OMG DC is making an announcement. Do you think he's told Boris he didn't do it right so he has to sort it out himself? I've never heard the like.

I'll be watching from behind the sofa, cringeing.

I'm a classic working class failed at everything why would anyone in power listen to me type

Far from it - your post was a clear and powerful statement.

Judging by his performance in front of Select Committees, DC doesn't react well to being asked challenging questions

I suspect that his press conference may have a similar outcome to Prince Andrew's attempts to bring the speculation and outrage to a close.

What time is the DC statement, does anyone know?

Can i ask one more thing re the letter to the MP, - there is a lot of identifying stuff in it, and I am quite a private person (despite spilling on here, anonymously!). Can I state at the top of the letter that I dont want her to share details of the contents without my permission, or does that just look barking mad / like I'm making it up as I go along?