I set out the legal arrangements surrounding the demand fur data made of the government by Lady Hallett, the former judge who is now heading the Covid inquiry, earlier this week.
I suggested then that three things very strongly suggest that Lady Hallett should be given the data that she has demanded.
The first is that the government had created the demand that she review its decision-making. It cannot then say that she does not need relevant data that might help her do so.
Second, the Inquiries Act 2005 clearly makes an inquiry chair the arbiter of what an inquiry might require.
Third, whilst an appeal against the decision of an inquiry chair is permitted the person who decides on that appeal is very clearly stated in law to be the inquiry chair. That might sound perverse until you appreciate that the government appoints that chair precisely because they think that they are in possession of the required judgement to undertake this task.
The net result is that when the government announced yesterday that it planned to ask for a judicial review that might consider these very issues its behaviour was really rather bizarre.
That was partly because it is in effect saying it got the terms of reference for this inquiry wrong.
It is also because it is, by implication, saying that it appointed the wrong person to head this inquiry.
And it is also saying it does not like a law that it knew would be used when creating an inquiry under the unambiguous 2005 Act.
Hardly surprisingly, experienced lawyers are queuing up to say that the chance of the government even securing a judicial review is low, whilst the chance that they might get their desired outcome is still lower.
In other words, this appeal is the desperate act of a desperate government that is desperate to hide the truth. The obvious inference is that there is in the potential revelations something desperately damaging to someone still serving in government.
That someone can only be Rishi Sunak.
Sunak would happily throw Johnson under a bus.
The hopeless Matt Hancock was always retained in office to be the fall guy. How others must have regretted him falling too early on the sword of his own lust.
Gove is too peripheral, whilst ever-present.
So there is only Sunak who can motivate this concern by the current government.
What is Sunak worried about? I suggest at least three things.
First, we know from Matt Hancock's book that it was widely known in government that Sunak's ‘Eat out to help out' scheme in the summer of 2020 that supposedly helped the restaurant trade did increase rates of Covid infection. What is more, we know this was known at the time because Hancock has said efforts were made to cover the Treasury's responsibility for the resulting deaths. Those deaths are Sunak's to account for. They might even be his fault. It's something he, no doubt, does not want to accept.
Second, Sunak was known by September 2020 to be the big Cabinet supporter of the far-right-inspired Great Barrington Declaration. Promoted by the American Enterprise Institute, but in part originating from Oxford, the British Medical Journal noted this of the Declaration:
The authors … said that because older people were 1,000 times more likely to die of covid-19 than younger people, an “age stratified” approach could allow resources to be focused on older and high risk patients, while allowing younger and healthier people to attend school and keep businesses open.
They argue that focused protection would reduce the “collateral harms” of lockdown, including deaths from suicides, reduced childhood immunization, and increases in domestic violence.
The reality was that the ideas were obviously absurd. It was, of course, impossible to stratify society by age. In that case, the suggested idea that the virus should be allowed to spread amongst younger people to supposedly create herd immunity was always the work of fantasists who were indifferent to the actual consequences for those who would suffer.
That did not prevent Sunak from bringing the authors to Downing Street. And the ideas in the Declaration undoubtedly influenced policy in the UK as a result, including further delays in lockdowns and the disastrous Christmas reopening in 2020.
Johnson may then have supposedly said “Let the bodies pile high” but it was Sunak who argued for the policy that would guarantee that they did.
So, third, of course Sunak wants to hide data from the inquiry. He is worried about the personal, political, and even legal consequences for him.
Will those consequences arise? If they are appropriate, I hope that they do. Who wouldn't? Anyone should be held accountable for reckless irresponsibility in public office. My suspicion is that Sunak might just bring forward the date when his reckoning arrives by bringing this action now. If so, that's all to the good. If we have a man indifferent to human suffering because of his desire to balance the Treasury budget now in charge of the country as prime minister, we need to know. I hope Lady Hallett will tell us.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
It isn’t just experienced lawyers who are saying the government’s chances are low. The science minister George Freeman said on Question Time that the government would probably lose, and then came out with some piffle that it would reinforce the need for the Covid inquiry not to publicise personal details that are not relevant to the inquiry. Does the government have so little faith in the person they appointed to hold the inquiry?
I suppose a judicial review of the decision to apply for a judicial review, on the grounds it is a waste of ‘taxpayers’ money’ would just delay the inevitable?
I hadnt realised Sunak was the main supporter of the GBD disastrous democidal herd immunity strategy.
I think Bylinetimes – recently warned that yet another APPG cross party group has been launched and financed by US far right money
Is it too much to hope that Hallet will really home in on this crucial , probably criminal decision to reject their own advisors and ensure thousands more died.
If only she would produce some kind of fast track 6 month’ initial findings ‘ report which headlines this.
I would like that too
I suspect it is not going to happen
If their prospect of a judicial review is as ludicrous as you suggest, then can we call a judicial review of the decision to staff taxpayers’ money on it?
No
The fact that Johnson is reportedly willing to provide the information to the inquiry himself indicates to me that he knows there is little there which will show him in a worse light, but plenty to put the knife into Sunak.
This assumes, of course, that the reports of Johnson being happy to cooperate are truthful!
I’d imagine that incriminating evidence about Sunak will include some sort of a large number of how many deaths he was willing to occur to get the ‘herd immunity’ pushed by the GBD grifters. That’s what he’ll be trying to keep out of the public eye.
As ever with Johnson if this morning’s latest coverage is to be believed, he is lying.
His claim to have handed over everything appears to only go as far back as mid-2021. Rather like the ludicrous Wagatha Christie case when the key witness “accidentally” dropped their phone into the North sea, Johnson has a highly convenient eyebrow raising excuse as to why information on his phone from the all important first 15 months of the pandemic period is no longer available.
Are our intelligence services so stupid that Prime Ministerial phones can be simply disappeared?
Meanwhile the UK media has been inexplicably swamped for weeks with drivel about two minor TV celebrities.
Classic distraction tactics.
It appears that W. S. Gilbert has reappeared to run the Cabinet Office.
We have a PM who really is a pygmy, in all senses of the word. Not just a physical ‘shortarse’ who is rather sensitive about his lack of height, but a moral and intellectual one too.
The depths this government has sunk to, and continues to descend to, are extraordinary. A PM so desperate to hide his own part in the Covid death rate that he is now trying a very long odds attempt to block this evidence being submitted to the inquiry his own government set up to look into the Covid debacle.
The tories; the natural party of misgovernment.
Vile-tory chancellors appear to have something of a track record in implementing (or supporting/proposing) polices that lead to large numbers of dead people.
Gidiot’s recession (2010 to 2015?) led to circa 130,000 deaths – that is a very large number of (mostly poor) people.
Sunak’s “eat out” (2020) seems to have likewise led to more Covid-related deaths than would otherwise have been the case. Numbers? more than 10,000? (and that’s before the long-Covid problem).
One could conclude that the vile-tory party dislikes poor people (and perhaps people in general?) to the point where policy impacts such as more deaths are either disregarded (greeted with a shrug?), or…….I will leave it to the imagination of readers to ponder further.
Elections soon, images need to be burnished – and policies (unintentional or otherwise) that lead to more dead people are never a good look.
It does make you think what they are trying to prevent the Covid Inquiry from finding out. Is it that the decisions were made with very little support from the Civil Service and the freaded experts, but instead were focusing on the views of all those focus groups drawn from a broadening pool of nodding heads from the right electorates?
Or maybe it is just that they think they have an almost divine right to rule and they do not have to answer to anyone for the decisions they made?
They forget that they are only in power with the support of the Parliament and the Monarch anyway. Though I could not see the Monarch sacking the Prime Minister in the UK, even though it has been done in other Commonwealth Nations.
Sunak spent £845m on the Eat out to Help out scheme to help Indian restaurants.
He did this while there were still problems in hospitals and Care Homes with shortages, and which were made worse by his efforts to spread the virus .
He continues to support Suella Braverman in her hounding of middle eastern asylum seekers while opening the doors to legal migrants from India , Hong Kong etc
Indian nationals, up 345,494 (+249%)
Chinese nationals, up 86,899 (+436%)
Turkish nationals, up 61,590 (+225%)
South African nationals, up 58,894 (+238%)
Extracted from https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-march-2023/how-many-people-come-to-the-uk-each-year-including-visitors
He’s not the first to look to reward supporters on his side but his errors of judgement , partiality, and willingness to use the racism card against those not of his race is hypocritical and distasteful.
There are restaurants other than Indian (i.e. Bangladeshi) ones out there, you know. Claiming the scheme was in place to help out one particular cuisine is daft.
I don’t think the ownership of the restaurants was ever really a consideration – he was just thinking about ‘keeping the economy going’. It was pretty clear that the furlough scheme and other support for businesses was announced begrudgingly as the pandemic progressed (I remember Richard pointing out days and weeks in advance what measures would actually be required as inadequate policies were announced day by day, and most of them came to pass).
No doubt that his willingness to demonise ‘immigrants’ is distasteful, but I don’t think it has anything to do with racism. Just self-interest in his own career and the fortunes of his party.
Guidance
Using non-corporate communication channels (e.g. WhatsApp, private email, SMS) for government business (HTML)
Published 30 March 2023
Appropriate use of NCCCs
8 – In general, it is expected that you use government systems for government business. Any use of NCCCs for significant government business engages your recordkeeping responsibilities.
Definitions and scope
12 – ‘Government systems’ are corporately-overseen systems providing corporate access to the information held in them. In contrast, a NCCC is a communication channel that does not provide corporate access to information.
13 – Examples of NCCCs include WhatsApp, Signal; private email; private messaging on social media platforms e.g. Facebook or LinkedIn; and SMS text messaging. This guidance applies to all current and future NCCCs.
14 – ‘Significant government information’ is information that materially impacts the direction of a piece of work or that gives evidence of a material change to a situation.
15 – ‘Devices’ includes desktop PCs, laptops, tablets and mobile phones. This guidance covers the use of NCCCs from any device regardless of ownership and management.
16 – Corporate devices are corporately owned and managed: they are generally configured, controlled and updated by government IT service staff.
Your transparency responsibilities
28 – Government information held on NCCCs could become the subject of an information access request. Where relevant, departments may ask you to search NCCCs. Deletion or concealment of material relevant to an information request may be a criminal offence.
Full guidance at…
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/non-corporate-communication-channels-for-government-business/using-non-corporate-communication-channels-eg-whatsapp-private-email-sms-for-government-business-html
I suspect that Sunak is taking a gamble that he knows he is almost certain to lose. But the consequences of the inquiry seeing the data may seem so dire to him that the gamble is worth taking.
His behaviour is what game theorists call “gambling for resurrection. ” The paradigm case of gambling for resurrection is that of the man who walks into a betting shop and places his whole life savings on a 50-1 outsider. His behaviour seems totally irrational until you realise that he owes the mafia £1,000,000 and they are threatening to kill him or worse if he does not pay up. If he loses he is not really any worse off and winning is the only way he can see of carrying on living..
Without a smoking gun, or blood-dripping knife it is difficult to attribute ‘excess deaths’, cf Tony Blair? It may be transiently embarassing if such is re-alledged, but that’s just the point – there’s gotta be new stuff which, by definition, we don’t yet know.
I reckon there is as yet undiscovered wrong-doing, somewhat akin to Chequers parties – but serious. Or (/and) evidence regarding Coronyism, eg prioritising PPE benefits over availability (don’t forget that during 2020 UK was selling off its stockpile of PPE stocks to overseas buyers).
I can’t though imagine what it might be that is not already known:
Sophie Hill put in tremendous effort for @My_Little_Crony
and
Russ Jones’ ‘Decade In Tory’ (eight pages of which just released: https://nitter.net/RussInCheshire/status/1664403911317368836 ) will be regarded as a modern-day Pepys.
Somewhat off-topic: Chris Patten’s response (BBC Qt 01JUN23*) was jaw-dropping in its honesty, and the first I have heard this actually articulated
*:
https://nitter.net/bbcquestiontime/status/1664394020448088066
https://nitter.net/bbcquestiontime/status/1664395801790136320
HOW could I have omitted those three-letter acromyms: NHS and USA? That’s what Sunak wants to hide; whether it’s amongst the WhatsApp messages who knows?
And of course it is not only content but WA group membership which might prove ‘enlightening’.
Whilst I agree with your ‘points of fear’ above, my belief is that Sunak is keeping his eyes on the polls.
The rose tinted spectacles of a lot of swing voters are coming off, benefit of the doubt is waning – time the revelator has been realised, the Tories have not been ‘doing their best’.
The hot, fetid and foul air that has kept the Tory party levitated above reality for so long seems to be finally hissing away faster day by day.
Are they on their way out? Maybe? We’ve got to remember that they are well funded as per usual but Sunak knows that if loses the next election, his party will see him as a loser – and for man who seems to have been a winner for a long time, that’s his biggest fear in my book and it will hurt his ego before his conscience.
Pilgrim Slight Return:
The ONLY reason the Tories won so many seats at the last GE was the evisceration of Corbyn by ALL of the media (inc. Russian social) assisted by the current management of the Labour Party.
We are where we are: Corbyn has been forced out which in theory makes Labour ‘more electable’ (but recall his popularity?). Sunak – second/third behind a lettice – knows he has only about a year to ‘improve’ NHS and establish Freeport / SEZ regimes…
PM in ’25? Not a chance; the Tories are now a collection of disparate – and desparate – groups for which Sunak is – at best – choice of last resort. Undoubtably there is the Boris effect, but this wields far less power now that there is no excuse for the electorate not to knowhis character, AND realisation that a substantial proportion of such effect was ‘NOT Corbyn’. Most Tories know that the only option for ‘continuity’ is Starmer.
– Anyone any clue what either party’s policies (NOT “stopping the boats”) are?
As for “Tories have not been ‘doing their best’”, I would take issue – they seem to be doing quite well, you are perhaps looking at the wrong agenda? What is it with people (electorate) that they presume actions must be taken in the best interests of the country? Once you clarify your mind in that respect ‘The Plan’ becomes blatently apparent.
I hear the most recent Boris-replacement ruse is to do away with inheritance tax …in time for GE! I am quite relaxed with that – PROVIDED an asset tax is put in its stead. Revolution eh?
Only Me
It’s nice to see someone bringing up the Corbyn issue again and I fully agree with you. The treatment of Corbyn – even noted by Peter Oborne in his book ‘The Assault on Truth’ (2021) – is going to be revealed at some time in our history, and the shenanigans of Labour’s Right (the pretend centrists) is going to come out one day – especially after that very extensive legal fight perhaps. Personally, I think we’ve seen one of the dirtiest political stitch-ups of recent times right under our noses. I say again, I’ve never been to a rock concert and seen a large part of the (young) crowd start singing about a politician before as I did in 2017.
I wonder if Stymied will allow 16 year olds to vote if he remembers this?
Yesterday I had to suffer one of the in-laws bemoaning Labour allowing Corbyn to happen. Her comments about Labour allowing more of the membership power stank of nothing more than monolithic elitism. Sure, there may have been entryism going on but as I said to her, I might have settled for incompetence over the incompetence AND cruelty of what we got with the Tory party. And look at what we’re going to get – more of the same but little kinder apparently according to Larry Elliott? We’re going to get the establishment’s version of a Labour party – a craven one.
To show you how ingrained the anti- Corbyn element is, Martin Kettle has an article in the Guardian on 31st May looking at the roads the UK did not take, prompted by a German review of its own recent history. Kettle does not even consider what might have happened had Corbyn got in – which to me signifies the collective blindness we see in the Guardian and its readership.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/31/britain-germany-alternative-history-brexit-falklands-second-world-war
But more than anything else, the anti-Corbyn project was/is strictly undemocratic. And it is this same anti-democracy that continues to choke something new, heterodox, etc.
As for your comment about ‘doing their best’ – all I’m doing is conveying to you what was the oft heard response I got from others when I was pointing out Johnson’s obvious failings before and during Covid. I’m not saying that the Tories are doing their best at all. Indeed, they have done their worst – except – as I point out – when it comes to fund raising for their criminal policies, which is always – of course – highly effective.
Nice to see a new name BTW.
Thanks
Agwh, thanks; ‘preciate it!
It’s difficult enough to just fight when everyone’s agen’ you – impossible to win. I can perhaps understand some of your in-laws: I’m not sure I would have voted Corbyn – but he won, by fair means, yet it was anything but which defenestrated him, so by my reckoning Starmer has about as much integrity as… the eat-out-to-help-out guy. I can only hope he carries such integrity through by in a year or two revealing he was all the time lying. This is what we have come to.
Ed Davey sounds sensible; who knows what PR might bring in the future – except of course the one person who won’t deliver it. ‘ thing is, as I texted a mate last July when, as if by osmosis, the horror started to dawn: PM / government is a poisoned chalice; the current incumbents have fcuked-over the country so well that even with proper government it can’t (not just won’t) recover for generations.
As for “doing their best” we may have misunderstood each other; I clipped-up a call from a phone-in shortly before Christmas. I could have chosen from dozens describing their recently acquired fashion accessory – an indoor coat, or the several businesses literally in the throes of closure because their energy contracts had come up for renewal (at up to eleven times previous rate), or just ‘Brexit’; but this is just some guy who’d as it happened had experience of liaising with Downing Street (short URL: https://v.gd/ayazor => https://voca.ro/19FCQ2LRF2LW )
I feel I owe Richard an apology for commandeering his blog; I don’t post often (… but when I do!, lol) because I find MMT a bit like gravity: I ‘get’ 75-90% of it, but always somehow end up with a spare negative, cf, masses which should push apart rather than attract. ‘ can’t help feeling I’d be more at home in a black hole?
According to the Guardian, quoting the Times, Johnson has been told that he will lose funding for his lawyers if he tries to undermine the government’s position on the Covid inquiry by supplying information directly.
Hilariously, when questioned abou this: “The Cabinet Office said the letter was “intended to protect public funds” so that taxpayer-funded lawyers are not used for any purpose other than aiding the inquiry.” https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/03/boris-johnson-is-told-legal-advice-funding-would-stop-if-he-hinders-covid-inquiry
What about the taxpayer funded lawyers who are being paid by the government to inhibit the inquiry by seeking a judicial review?
Agreed