Smile. It's ok, you are allowed to till next year.

Media vendeta? You decide.

Until yesterday when Mr Cummings appeared in the Rose Garden at No 10, the fundamental question was, did Dominic break the law.  Or the guidelines.   

On listening to Mr Cummings, I think only the harshest interpretation of the advice that accompanied Stay at Home (full details on Govt and NHS web sites so everyone could read them), would begrudge Mr Cummings and his family the latitude to do what they did.  

But of course, that is not enough for the braying pack of wolves.  They want blood.  So today we have Ms Kuenssberg, BBC Political editor, taking the story on  with her a statement today “Dominic Cummings' press conference did not answer fundamental question”.   

I re-read what Mr Cummings said yesterday, and the answers he gave and struggle to see what fundamental question he had not answered.   

You might not have liked or agreed with what he said, but answer the questions he did.   

So what is this fundamental question Ms Kuenssberg is referring to?  Actually, it’s nothing to do with what Mr Cummings did or didn’t do.  Her fundamental question has moved on to this.  “Is his continued presence in Downing Street more of a hindrance than a help to Boris Johnson?”   

Seriously, that is what she said.  Nothing to do with the journey.  Nothing to do with the virus.  Her article, by shifting the target, shows this really has absolutely nothing to do with Mr Cummings journey but part of the media vendetta to get rid of Mr Cummings.

Who said what? Back to politics as normal.

Statement one.  We want “a controlled points-based system to support the migration of skilled workers for the benefit of the economy”.   

Statement two.  Our system “will ensure people can come to our country based on what they have to offer, not where they come from”.   

It is interesting that the authors of the first statement are decrying the authors of the second as “reckless”, “draconian”, and “unforgivable.”     

The author of the first statement was Nicola Sturgeon.  The second, Prit Patel.  

So remind me, what did Nicola and the SNP in 2014 campaign for in an independent Scotland promise?   

Yes, to implement an Australian-style points-based system.   The SNP’s 2014 ‘Scotland’s Future’ manifesto for a separated Scotland promised that the newly independent government would deliver.  

Read the SNP promise here.

Don't blame Ministers for PPE mess.

You do have to admire successive Government Ministers standing accepting criticism in relation to the lack of PPE on the front line when they could so easily point to the public servants tasked to buy all the gear and lambast them for their failure to acquire the right kit and get it to the right place at the right time.  

It’s not that the NHS procurement side of things haven’t had the time.  

I think the first instruction by a Minister to “do what is necessary” must be at least two months ago. 

We are now beginning to see the real failure of the centralised bureaucratic nature of the NHS compared, for example, to Germany’s largely non state owned and decentralised system.   

Our NHS procurement system can’t even supply basic kit to the people we clap every Thursday evening.

A misleading headline from the BBC.

On the BBC website this morning, as per usual, there is a section, Newspaper Headlines.  The headline in today’s Newspaper headlines is: “‘No 10 ignored warning’ and ‘PM takes back control’”.  Well, Boris back in control, there’s a thing.  And sure enough, the Sunday Telegraph has a banner headline “Johnson Starts To Take Back Control”. 

So I then go hunting for the other headline it flags up. ‘No 10 ignored warning’.   

Sunday Times? Nope.  They run with “Ministers plan for to reopen schools in three weeks’ time”.   
Mail on Sunday?  Nope.  Their headline is “Get Britain Moving Again”.   
The Observer? Nope.  “Don’t bet on a vaccine to protect us”.   
Sunday Express?  Nope.  “Hard Work Is Paying Off”.   
Sunday Mirror?  Nope.  “Doctors Fear We Will Run Out Of Oxygen”.   
Sunday People?  Nope.  “Too Scared To Hug Their Kids”.   
Daily Star?  Nope.  “Gogglebox Dad Fights For Life”.     

Now, am I missing something here?  Not one headline said “No 10 ignored warning”?  So why did the BBC put a headline on its article that clearly was not true?   

Answers on a postcard….

First cuckoo of spring

Just because there is a Pandemic doesn’t mean it’s time to down tools in areas where tools could quite easily be picked up and used.  And in the spirit of getting things done one has to pay tribute to the two appointed negotiators for the post leaving EU trade negotiations.  Michael Barnier and David Frost, both who have had Covid-19, are keeping things moving.    

But then, out of nowhere, the IMF decides to stick their nose into something that isn’t their business.  That happens a lot these days. I think the UK and the EU are grown up enough to not need hand holding by the IMF which has got so many of the big calls wrong over the past ten years.  Perhaps it should go into isolation for a period.   

But it’s the general thrust of this thinking.  The Labour party are asking for extensions too. 

All I’m waiting for now is the first cuckoo of spring to emerge, a deranged Remainer, and demand that with so many elderly people dying we need another referendum as the people who voted Leave are no longer with us.   

Believe me, it will happen sooner or later.

“NHS has saved my life, no question"

You can understand why Boris said that.  But it’s simply a misrepresentation of the reality of things.  The NHS has never saved anyone.  It never will.   

As Boris generously continued by naming the people who actually did save his life we can be thankful that they did just that.  People saved his life.   

But there is more to it that that.  He might well have said "Government policy saved my life, no question".  And he would have been right.   

For 70 years successive governments have poured taxpayers money into the NHS.  It is their decisions over these years that have created the current system of healthcare called the NHS.   

So we really could stand on the rooftops on Thursday and clap Labour and Conservative governments for continuing to support healthcare they way they have done.   

But as they say, if things go well, praise the NHS.  If they go badly, blame the government.

Ideology over national interest.

So Jackson Carlaw has faced criticism for speculating on the impact the coronavirus pandemic will have on next year's Holyrood election.   The Scottish Conservatives leader said it would now "look ridiculous" if the SNP pushes for independence at next year's poll.  Bad boy.   

And it was well reported on the BBC web site with the SNP calling out the remarks as inappropriate with a party spokesman saying "the last thing any Scottish politician on any side of the constitutional debate should be doing is trying to use the appalling crisis we all currently face as an argument for or against independence".  How neat, they still manage to get independance in to their response.  Although one actually suspects Ms Sturgeon is glad it won’t be this year as she in all probability would have lost.     

But hold on, one of Keir Starmer’s new shadow cabinet has just done the same thing in relation to connecting the virus with a political stance.  Perhaps hardly surprising given it is packed with hard-core EU Remainers.   

The BBC headline. “Brexit: Labour warns against 'chaotic' no deal outcome” finds the new shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds feeling confident enough to urge ministers not to put "ideology over national interest" because of the Corona virus.   

Of course she was just trotting out what MEPs had been demanding. Or as the BBC headline put it “Delay Brexit deadline amid coronavirus, say MEPs”.  

I always find ideology over national interest an amusing phrase.  What they really mean is don’t put your ideology ahead of mine.  Ms Dodds ideology is Brexit is a very bad thing.   

But there are three things she seems to have forgotten.  Brexit has already happened; we legally have left the EU.  Secondly, there is no such thing as no deal.  The EU and the UK both know that unless an agreement is reached the deal will be WTO.  Everyone knows that.  That is the legal position passed by parliament. One does hope the shadow chancellor does too and she was not just having a forgetfulness moment.   And thirdly, how come when Jackson Carlow gets a rollicking for commenting on something that is constitutional while Sir Keir and his team don’t get a similar going over in the media? 

Heir apparent? I think not.

Should Mr Johnson decide that being PM is not for him after his close run thing with Covid-19, Mr Raab cannot be assumed to be heir apparent.   

Given he never even made the last five for the election as Party leader, and therefore as candidate to be prime minister, he cannot legitimately claim Conservative party support.   

Surely a new Conservative leader, and therefore PM, has to be Mr Gove who was in 3rd place in the leadership election and the only current cabinet member in that last five other than Mr Johnson, or Mr Hunt who went on to be runner up in the contest.    

It’s either of them or another leadership election.

Don't forget the hidden supply chain.

I am sure that at 8pm tonight many of us will take to the streets to applaud.  Applaud the key workers in our nation that are dealing with the sick, the ones making sure our post gets through and those who are delivering food to supermarkets and corner shops.    

But what of the not so obvious people who are working away behind the scenes?   The private businesses that are servicing Royal Mail vehicles, police cars, ambulances.  The businesses that are suppling vital parts to the pharmaceutical industry that keeps their supply lines of essential drugs flowing.  The list goes on.   

When you start to think about it, there are actually very few parts of our industrial world that while not being vitally essential, are fundamental to ensuing that our society has what it needs when it needs it.   

So next time you see someone driving to work, don’t tut-tut the business they are going to for being open.  Just ponder, what part of the hidden supply chain is it they are supporting that is holding our nation together.  

The Jury.

I felt ever so sorry for Barry Devonside, whose son Christopher, 18, died in the disaster at Hillsborough, when he said: "I'm shocked and stunned by the verdict of the jury.   We, the families, have fought for 30 years valiantly."  It's a nightmare for their families that will never go away.

But what did they fight for all these years?  I thought they were always fighting that the cases of their loved ones would find its way into a Court and that a jury of their peers would decide if the person charged was indeed guilty.    

Apparently not.  They simply wanted the person in the dock to be found guilty.  What’s the point of jury and a court if you simply get the verdict that you want.  The jury are asked, on behalf of society, to review the evidence and assess whether or not the prosecution has indeed made the case for the guilt to be seen as being beyond reasonable doubt.  That’s how a free and fair society works.      

Surely they didn’t expect that a jury would simply rubber stamp their personal view that one individual was guilty?   If they did, then only one of two scenarios can exist.  They have been deceived by their legal council. Or they didn’t listen to their legal council.

Amazing stuff from the BBC.

Something very remarkable happened today on the 1pm news on BBC1.  Live on BBC tv a reporter was allowed to say, totally un-challenged, that Mr Johnson told lies.   

First of all, lets take the Twitter feed. The Conservatives didn’t actually change the label that said it was the Conservative Twitter account.  It’s there.  Bold.  No one could miss it.  Unless that is you were deliberately seeking to undermine the Conservatives.    

The party clearly were not touting it as an independent fact checker.  Only the most obtuse individual could surmise that it was genuine.  

Then Amol Rajan, the BBCs Media Editor, popped up with one of the most remarkable things I have ever heard journalist say on the BBC.  His exact words at 5:05? 

“The party of government …. has basically used Twitter … as a way of putting out something that is less than true.”   

He then goes on to say at 5:28 that the information on the Conservative twitter feed “wrong and false”.   

Now, I have no problem a Labour of Lib Dem saying that kind of thing in the hurly burly of an election.  

But not, a BBC journalist accusing the Conservatives of telling lies.  With not a shred of evidence to back it up.  Remarkable.  Balance?  Make up your mind.

Who can you trust?

I know that the Lib Dems are very unhappy that Ms Swinson did not appear in the debate with Messrs Corbyn and Johnson last night.  But fear not for all is still well in her camp.   

Take what was said on Sky News a month or two ago.  “The Lib Dems fightback is real – and it's changing everything”.  And in the Guardian, “Lib Dems winning and on the up after by-election victory”.   

Well, I would be very happy as a party leader hearing these words.  Indeed, I would be so happy I would plaster them all over my election literature.  Why wouldn’t you.  And that is exactly what she did.  And had it posted through letterboxes all over the country.  Though interestingly, I haven't seen it through my letterbox yet and I live in her constituency.

The only problem is, these words were not from some independent commentator who was observing things from a neutral stance.  These are words that Ms Swinson herself used to these news outlets.   

As you can see from the leaflet, nowhere does it say that these words are hers.  And she has the audacity to point the finger at others who are being "economical with the actuality" as the late Alan Clark used to put it.   

If Ms Swinson is what we deserve as prime minster, as it says that on the other side of the leaflet, what have we done wrong?  

I know.  We voted to Leave the EU.  And she wants to put that right (in her eyes) and stop the democratic mandate of the people being implemented.   

Or putting it another way, if you can’t trust what she puts on her leaflets, how could you trust her in No 10?

Having a laugh?

The Lib Dems really are having a laugh.   

Though with their figures in the polls steadily falling, Datapoll’s findings say they are now down at 11%, they are not the ones laughing.  Unless they are in denial.   

Ms Swinson, in the latest polls from Survation, the Pollster who called it right at the last election, is in trouble.  When asked who would be their preferred PM, Mr Johnson is up 6pts to 47% while Ms Swinson tumbles 6% to even below Mr Corbyn, on only 15%.   

To parody their leaflets, LibDems NOT winning here.    

The party that seeks to undermine the democratic mandate of the Referendum by simply, should it have the power to do so, wipe away the 17,410,742 votes that won Leave the victory, now seeks to claim the democratic moral high ground.  Its President, Baroness Brinton, in an interview after the party lost its Lib Dems ITV debate legal challenge, had the audacity to say that the decision was “disappointing for democracy in this country”.  

Let me get this right Baroness.  You think it is ok for the president of a national party that, at every stage over the past three years, has sought to undermine the democratic vote of the people of the UK to leave the EU, to have the right to call a decision by a judge as disappointing for democracy?  This is more nauseating distasteful stuff from a party that long ago gave up on agreeing with the principle of Losers' consent, the very bedrock of our democracy.

What is our health service for?

In my childhood, we were not a wealthy family.  We simply had to match our spending to what money we had coming in from my dad’s salary.  We struggled like many families did in the 60’s.  And sometimes it is only when you look back you see that the generation then simply lived by their means.  And got on with it.  Did it do us any harm?  Not really.  Did we borrow money to pay for the day to day living expenses?  No, we just didn’t get that new coat, the old one had to last a bit longer. 

It is the same attitude that exists in business. If we would like to buy an additional bit of machinery to make the business more efficient, but we don’t have the money, we would just make the old machine last a bit longer.  Or borrow money to buy a new one.  But what we would never do is borrow money just to run the business.          

But when it comes to the taxpayer funded National Health Service, all logic goes out of the window.  In the current situation where there are hospitals that are not hitting their target times, the immediate response is Accident and Emergency needs more money.  And perhaps it does.  Though if you do look more closely at the figures rather then the headlines, you realise that actually, 83.6% of A & E patients are admitted or transferred within four hours in October is, on the whole, not too bad.  Definitely a first world problem if you have to wait a little longer.  

And it is all the more impressive when you go and sit in an A & E unit as I have had to do on occasion recently and see people clogging up the system with things that a locally pharmacy or GP could have dealt with.  They are certainly not emergency cases.   But the response then generally continues, well, let’s just take more taxpayers money and throw it in the never ending deep hole that is the NHS.  No one says, as you and I would do at home, or a business would do, ok, what else can we trim in order to pay for this.  The assumption is, if the NHS needs it, extra money will be given.     

Of course, take money away from the taxpayer, and that means they will have less money to spend on a new coat.  Or a business on a new machine.  And if people have less money to spend, then shops will eventually feel the pinch and have to lay off staff.  And so it goes on.      

What nationalised industries have is what you and I don’t have.  A money tap that can be switched on.      

What should be happening in the current situation is, the NHS should say, well, A & E is more important so we will allocate resources to it and another part of the free at point of delivery health care provision be considered as less important so we will cut money to that.  Yes, there would be a hue and cry.   

But that brings us round to the question no political party is willing to address as they promise to spend billions on propping up an inefficient health care service that really has no thought out mission except to keep doing what it used to do and add more in.  What should the NHS actually be doing?   

What actually should be free at the point of delivery?   Everything?  From Abortion to Zenker's diverticulum and everything in between?  That’s the real debate we should be having in society.   

One thing is certain, the nation’s finances cannot be 100% spent on health care provision.  Our party leaders are being reckless in the extreme suggesting that more and more money is the solution. 

Votes for women.

An interesting day today in Westminster.  We had two women stating the reason for them to be allowed to where they would like to be was because they were women.   

We had Ms Swinson with her increasingly shrill voice and, how shall we put it, impassioned face, demanding that because she is a woman she should be in the one TV debate that has been announced.  Listen to her outside St Stephens Entrance, that really was the order in which she set it.   Yes, almost as an afterthought she said it was because she was leading the only party committed to overturning the wishes of 17,410,742 people, that she should have equal footing.   

The other was Ms Harman who was seeking to be become Speaker in the House of Commons.  Her main reason for thinking she should assume the chair?  She is a woman and it is time that a woman should be in the chair.  Not that she is the best skilled and competent.  She’s a woman.  You can listen to her speach at 15:02 on the Parliament TV website.

So there we have it, we should not appoint people by the level of their ability but because they’re a woman.  Now, when giving people opportunity not because of their ability but because of the colour of a person’s skin in South Africa in the olden days, we called that apartheid.   

What should we call what Ms Swinson and Ms Harman are seeking to do?

Different economic views.

I am always slightly bemused when I see a headline that is in parenthesis.  Take yesterday’s article on the BBC web site.  Brexit deal means ‘£70bn hit to UK by 2029'.  So the national broadcaster can make a statement on its website that may or may not be true, it's fall back position being we were merely quoting someone else.  No one knows if it will happen that way or not for that is just one economist’s view.   But that is not made clear in the article.  It is presented as fact.  Indeed, it may be completely the other way around; we may have a £70bn bounty by 2029.  But anyone who reads the article would think it to be true because it is a headline on the BBC.  While not fake news, it certainly is very misleading.     

There are other economic visions of the future that are different ones to those of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research that the BBC is quoting.  Some people have said there is political bias in the NIESR.  I’m not so sure that’s true.  But what I am sure of is that NIESR is a very devout follower of Keynesian economic theory.  And a highly respected one too.   So if you want a Keynesian approach, they are the people to go to.       

And there is the problem.  Keynesian thinking is only one way of seeing the economy.  And the NIESR is very biased if we mean it seeks to see the world though a Keynesian macroeconomics perspective.   It is true, Keynes certainly isn't politically biased.  It is not his fault that some on the moderate Left support his views and policy recommendations.  And yes, some to the right have been devoutly Keynesian as well.  But the reality is, there are dozens of different flavours of economic thinking.  But the BBC has showed a bias to Keynesian thinking by its failure to reflect there are other mainstream economic models that would fundamentally disagree with the headline of the article.   

One economic model to watch in the next few weeks of the election campaign will be the one espoused by Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell.  They come from the Little Red Book from Chairman Mao, the man who’s economic and social polities caused the death of up to 35 million people.  Indeed, nowhere in the world has this brand of economic theory ended in anything other than utter failure.   

Yes, I know his answer, chillingly, is always along the lines of, ‘yes but they weren’t fully and properly implemented, that’s why they failed’.   

So over the next few weeks as we head to an election I am sure his brand of Marxist economics, which to be honest are as legitimate a position to hold as any other, even though its implementation around the world has caused unimaginable misery and destruction to once great economies, will be tested to the limit with the likes of Andrew Neil holding Mr McDonnell’s feet to the fire. 

Just flagging up an issue.....

 

Today outside a court in Edinburgh.  Not one UK or Scottish flag in the picture.   

Sadly, it kind of says it all.  They really do want us to be totally subservient to the EU.  

Meanwhile, the rest of us were spending the day working, earning money so that Ms Cherry and her SNP friends can take a slice off to spend on their pet projects. 

The question is, why do they hate the UK so much? 

Contempt. That is what remainers like Ms Cherry hold 17,410,742 people in.

Ms Cherry said it was a well-established principle in law that it was unlawful for a minister, including the Prime Minister, to do anything that frustrated or undermined the principle of an Act of Parliament.   

Really Joanna?   You having a laugh?    

Is she then going to explain why she and her anti-democratic friends are seeking to do just that by undermining the legislation that was passed into law by her fellow MPs?  It is Ms Cherry and her colleagues that should be held in contempt, not just by the courts as they clearly are the ones who are frustrating and Act of Parliament, but by the public.   

Let’s not forget, more people in Scotland voted to leave the EU than voted SNP at the last general election.    

A final point, can you think of any other democracy that has had its legislators voting against what they themselves had enacted? 

Want to know Lib Dems policy?