This Tweet refers to an exchange yesterday between Lady Hallett, Chair of the Covid Inquiry, and counsel for the Cabinet Office. The video is worth watching:
https://twitter.com/bestforbritain/status/1666105838442881027?s=61&t=fQEnD35XLiGihXLT1M1wyA
In summary, someone was paid by the government yesterday to say that “the Cabinet Office's position is that it is working out its position”. This is despite the Cabinet Office having been in possession of a demand for data from the Covid Inquiry for more than four months now.
The answer is, of course, ludicrous. It is quite absurd that the Cabinet Office does not have a position. It's absurd because the statement is not true. The truth is that the government has got a position. The statement is in fact part of its position. That position is to prevaricate and delay and so maintain the status quo, which this government thinks advantageous when it is apparent to all that change is necessary.
What Lady Hallett should not be surprised about is that this is happening. After all, the government's effective refusal to engage with her is unsurprising. It refuses to engage with the economy, which is why the Bank of England is being allowed to wreak havoc. It refuses to engage with climate change, at cost to us all. It also refuses to engage with law and order, where any realistic attempt at enforcement has largely ceased to exist. And it refuses to engage on almost any other issue, unless it has made the issue in which it engages up for the benefit of it being reported in the right wing media.
We have a government without a position, except that is to permit the perpetuation of situations that permit the abuse of power and the development of growing inequality in society. That is the government's position. It is actually abundantly clear.
The only problem arises when the government is forced to explain it, which is what happened yesterday. And then its lawyer was instructed to make himself look stupid. But he, no doubt, is in the eyes of his ministerial masters, a pawn to be sacrificed.
And so we go on with the process of government being daily and deliberately undermined by those elected to office to do just that. This is the neoliberal end game.
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Totally unsurprising the human race splits into those who devalue others and those who value them, “devaluists and valuists” if you like. Given that the human race has gained immensely from collective action, working together, Adam Smith’s Division of Labour, social democracy, it really doesn’t make much overall or long term sense for voters to elect “devaluist” politicians like Tories or Starmer led Labour ones.
‘It refuses to engage’ – indeed, and as you say Richard their week to week ‘governing’ is a succession of divertionary dog whistles – news management – pie in the sky new drugs, endless immigration barges, etc.
Is this any better than Erdogan, Orban. Law and Justice and the rest?
And as the Guardian reminded u,s hoovering up all our details in their secret fiiles.
Andrew
I think ‘government’ is a misleading depiction.
I don’t know (really!) whether this is a rhetorical question but –
what does Rishi actually do all day?
(OK, when his feet are on the ground)
I’d like to know what Starmer does when Sunak is not at PMQs. Why is Sunak deemed the only one worthy of debating with?
I know that it’s tradition, but why.
If Starmer does become PM at the next election Sunak will not be leader of the opposition. Does he not need to show he is capable of debating with other tories?
Today’s sad news, by the way, Caroline Lucas is not standing again.
I totally agree with the post.
All I would add is a thought about what enables people to behave so barefacedly badly like this?
And the answer is, money lots of money. The Tories know that they have the support of the rich – and that is important in all of this unfortunately. Tories will feel untouchable and validated by the wealth that supports them. We might get them in the end but it will take an arm and a leg.
And if then, will anything change? I think that we can mostly agree that any change on the horizon is limited.
I noticed at PMQs today how many tories criticised labour for taking £1.5 million from Dale Vince, although the question was stated differently. In fact I was sure it was a labour MP who asked it.
“Gareth Bacon (Con) asks if Dowden agrees it would be disgraceful for a political party to accept public money from a company that received huge sums from the furlough scheme.”
Labour obviously not allowed to have the support of any rich people.
Of course, he could have been criticising Sunak’s wife.
The latter is more likely
But in our current system daft, either way
The Government had already changed its position from a matter of personal privacy (unsustainable) last week, to the need to protect from intrusion into other areas of Government (Monday). That argument is a covert appeal to Crown Prerogative, that the Government does not wish to make explicit because few people realise how much it is used, or how it works, or its limits, or how much it is a misuse of power already.
Strange how Johnson is made to look the good guy in this. He could have handed them over to Hallett in the first place without going through the cabinet office.
Slightly off topic, and you might perhaps be planning to blog about it, but the 7th Annual Report of the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee was published yesterday. It seems to me to be connected to your theme of government being undermined. In this case by a government which appears to have no interest at all in governing.
https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/40191/documents/196316/default/
Reading through it gives me an impression of government in utter chaos; incompetent ministers, poor civil servants, deeply faulty procedures, underfunding, lack of planning, poor risk evaluation, etc. you name it, it’s critiqued.
I found it a very disturbing report to read.
You are right….
It is a recurring PC concern
Maggie
They are not (quite!) as incompetent as it might appear; you need to realise their agenda nowhere includes what might be best for the country.
What reamains of the UK is being privatised by the back door; ‘guess who’ are lining-up as stake-holders / directors. May I just mention Teesside Development (including what receives far less coverage, the ecological disaster – officially ascribed to a novel virus (definitely not pyridine from dredging, OK!) …
TeesWorks – Andy McDonald :
https://nitter.net/-/status/1666497862069280798
Over 200 MPs missing on that vote yesterday. The opposition could have won it if they had all bothered to turn up to vote. I know they pair up , but something as important as what Andy McDonald is talking about should not allow for that.
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2023-06-07a.799.0
It shows they do not care about accountability or scrutiny.
By the way, anyone know what is happening about Johnson misleading parliament?
I’d just read Private Eye’s latest update on the ever more naked corruption associated with the Teesside development. Mates of the Conservative Mayor Houchen being lavishly rewarded at the nation’s expense. That is even before you consider the fundamentally dishonest premise of freeport’s or the environmental adage that is being exposed.
On Wednesday there was a debate on the Commons with the Opposition pushing for a National Audit office investigation. If there is nothing to hide it would have cleared the air. Needless to say the Tory MPs all voted against it. They are now all equally complicit.
(PS A family member and good friend was one of those asked to submit a report on freeport’s when the government were pretending to take an objective view. He has deep and long experience in international trade and the role that freeport’s play in tax evasion, smuggling, counterfeiting, organised crime and the rest. He said that it was obvious that there was no interest whatsoever in the report and Sunak and co were intent on going ahead regardless. The appeal of tax and regulatory avoidance is catnip for them. Also Sunak’s Indian family are deeply involved in Freeport’s in India.)
This all smells to high heavens
Given the intelligence level of those who are trying to sell alleged ‘AI’ as some kind of threat (it’s an entirely artificial kind of ‘intelligence’ on a level with those attempting to cheat using it), it seems completely natural that an artificial man like Rish! should be promoting it… His clique are all about using whatever means available to cheat their way to a continual hold on power, including indulging in the current hype around these language tools…
I think you misunderstand AI
But the biggest problem by far is the lack of effective challenge from the so called Opposition parties.
We have a government that has no vision or ambition for the country with only an ambition for themselves to cling to power.
However much the West despises China for its ruthlessness and disregard for human rights it does at least have a forward plan that it pursues with rigour with effective outcomes.
Unfortunately the U.K. is on a downward trajectory that eventually is going to require very drastic recovery action to avoid a total third world living environment.
We have people who are more than capable of creating such a plan but, whilst we have a political class that is drawn form an ever tighter pot of talentless individuals who are selected for voter appeal rather than statesman like or creative ability the U.K. will continue its slide into dentition with increasing velocity.
Surely these message are in the cloud and could be retrieved by a Whats App techy.