It was a depressing, foregone conclusion that MPs would vote to renew the excessive powers granted to government under the Coronavirus Act 2020. Another dull afternoon in the Commons was in prospect, when suddenly the debate took a turn for the bizarre. An MP got up on his hind legs to give one of the […]
There’s no more money for health workers. No. But there’s money for a second aeroplane. Not content with splurging £900,000 on a flag fetishist paint job on the first, spendaholic Johnson has leased a second fossil fuel-guzzling, emissions-increasing plane from Titan Airways. Really emphasising our green credentials, eh? Oh, and Titan Airways has applied to […]
Did you take part in any of the anti-Brexit, pro-final say/People’s Vote marches in 2017/2018 or 2019? If you did, you will know what astonishingly well-mannered, convivial affairs they were (whether that was a good thing or not is another matter). Hundreds of thousands of people travelled up to London on coaches that left the […]
For millions of voters, the most basic act of democratic citizenship – casting a vote – is about to get harder. Under legislation being trailed in the media, it will no longer be possible simply to walk into a polling station, give your name and address, and cast a vote. Instead, voters will have to produce […]
40 per cent hike in salary for lockdown-breaker and UK-destroyer Dominic ‘I-need-an-eye-test Cummings. 13 per cent for Sunak’s HMRC civil servants (may be deserved…not the issue here); £37 billion set aside for Dido Harding’s Test and Trace…which cannot find one traveller who got off a plane from Brazil (and which is, anyway, downscaling its operations […]
Ever get the feeling that this government starts each day wondering what it can get away with? It must seem easier than taking candy off a baby to dole up a heap of lies and cruelties and get us to swallow them and say we’d vote for more. I mean, what are those polls about? […]
Update from the Editor: Today Matt Hancock attempted to wriggle out of any responsibility for his law-breaking failure to comply with transparency policy. Instead , he has shoveled the blame onto civil servants and claimed that the reason they failed to comply with the law was that they were busy saving lives. He implied that […]
This government’s evident resistance to undergoing any process of scrutiny is now taking the country into very dangerous territory. This country allegedly operates a parliamentary democracy, with our elected representatives scrutinising, debating and voting on new laws and changes to existing legislation, holding the executive to account, including checking and approving spending and taxation. UPDATE: […]
Do you remember this from June 2016? Like us, you may feel a chill as you view it in the context of the report on the NHS from the influential, hyper libertarian thinktank, the Institute for Economic Affairs (‘IEA’), and the announcement of new ‘reforms’ to the NHS from Matt Hancock today, 11 February 2021. […]