posted on 18/8/2020 22:56Interim 'The Week in Tory' because there's so much nonsense (Part 2) - Gramsci.

41. Winston Churchill’s grandson, a Tory MP, said of Gavin Williamson “what could have been in the Prime Minister’s mind that led him to appoint so mere, so unreliable, so wholly unsuitable a man to one of the most important jobs in Government”

42. A Tory MP said “It was as clear as day that there would be an issue, given what happened in Scotland, yet they ****ed around”

 

43. A poetic Tory MP said the govt was “****ing into the void”, and if that’s not the name of a band by midnight, what’s the point of anything?

44. There are now calls for Ofqual to be abolished and replaced with something that will probably be worse, but as yet no news on which unqualified but vaguely aristocratic Tory MP’s wife will run it. I'll keep you posted.

45. Meanwhile, Gavin Williamson had promised to provide laptops to disadvantaged students during the lockdown, but only half the required laptops were delivered, and 27 Academy Trusts got just 1 laptop each, to be shared between over 2000 students

46. After the stunning success of this bit of Artificial Intelligence, the govt announced plans to boost Whitehall AI spending by £200m. The money will go to Faculty AI, which has links to [checks notes] a Mr Dominic Cummings, resident of Whitehall and Specsavers in Durham

47. Rumours that the govt has an algorithm that turns every minister into Chris Grayling are unfounded

 

48. Chris Grayling – I mean, Gavin Williamson - now has to persuade parents that he’s competent enough to make schools safe for their kids to return. Good luck with that, Gav.

49. The govt had 5 months to plan and execute one exam policy affecting 335,000 students

 

50. The govt now has 4 months to plan and execute over 2000 Brexit policies affecting 67 million of us, and every business in the country. Brace, brace.

51. On the subject of Brexit, this week Boris Johnson said there would only be a customs border in the Irish Sea “over my dead body”.

 

52. The same Boris Johnson signed the Withdrawal Agreement that creates a customs border in the Irish sea

53. Trade Secretary and part-time punchline Liz Truss promised “I will consign these unfair tariffs to the bin of history” when she makes her stern demands in a trade deal between USA (world’s biggest economy) and UK (2% of global trade). I bet the USA is ****ting itself.

54. Meanwhile, after Liz Truss sang the praises of a potential deal with NZ (value: 4% of the trade we will lose with a No Deal Brexit) the NZ deputy PM said “Britain is not match fit for trade talks” and was “beset with inertia”

55. Boris Johnson promised “lower costs and a bonfire of red tape” as a result of Brexit

 

56. So imagine my shock when this week the govt pledge £355m to help companies in NI deal with “a new wave of red tape”

57. The govt scrapped Public Health England in the middle of a pandemic. Cos that’s what we need. Not testing. Just a new sign over a door.

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58. It then appointed Dido Harding to the replacement organisation, even though the replacement organisation didn’t exist at the time

59. Some notes on Dido Harding, in case you're unfamiliar with her impressive record of failing upwards

 

60. The Evening Standard – a Tory-supporting paper – wrote of her “Dido Harding's utter ignorance is a lesson to us all”

61. She ran the programme that spent 15x the worldwide average building a tracing app that she was told wouldn’t work, unsurprisingly didn’t work work, and which it then scrapped without publishing accounts of where that £13m went

62. She runs Test and Trace, described as “not fit for purpose, let alone world-beating” by the chair of NHS Providers

 

63. Her £100m Test and Trace programme traced only 56% of cases, compared with Blackburn council, who traced 98% without a penny of new funding

64. She is a Tory peer, married to a Tory MP, who is adviser to a group that campaigns for the defunding, break-up and sale of the NHS; and if you wanted that, putting somebody famous for "utter ignorance" in charge would be a good first step

65. She’s on the board of The Jockey Club, which is based in Matt Hancock’s constituency and gave tens of thousands in donations to Matt Hancock, and then coincidentally got dispensation to stay open for 180,000 unwitting fans when the Covid 19 outbreak began

66. A major Jockey Club sponsor is Randox, to whom her husband is an adviser, and which coincidentally got a £133m contract to produce testing kits without any other providers being allowed to bid for the work

 

67. Her husband – get this – is a “Govt Anti-Corruption Champion”

68. More govt anti-corruption, and Serco got a £108m contract, just months after it was fined £2.6m for buggering up a previous contract. The minister awarding the contract? A former Serco lobbyist. Chief exec of Serco? A Tory MP.

69. Meanwhile, Medical Examiners have been instructed not to make public the results of investigations into hundreds of deaths of NHS workers who didn’t have PPE

 

70. The value of utterly useless PPE rose from a mere £50m last week to £300m this week

71. And who got the contracts for useless PPE? A company part-owned by a friend and advisor to Liz Trust. Did I say Trust? I meant Truss. Definitely not Trust.

72. Meanwhile, Sajid Javid, employed full-time as an MP, also took a job at banking giant JP Morgan; cos if the last 10 years has taught us anything, it’s that there’s no danger in MPs or bankers not fully concentrating on what they’re doing

73. The Royal Society issued a report saying relaxing the lockdown early would “inflate deaths and deepen recession”

 

74. So obviously, the govt relaxed the lockdown in Leicester

75. The Chief Exec of the care home charity CIC said the care sector was “being left to prepare for a second wave alone” as it has received no advice or assistance from govt

 

76. 10% of care home residents died of Covid in the first half of this year. Not laughing now, are you

77. Weeks after it was proven Russia was regularly attempting to pervert UK democracy, a report found “an ongoing risk of cyber security incidents within Cabinet Office due to the vulnerability of legacy IT systems”, and Michael Gove is directly responsible for fixing it

78. Michael Gove was found to use an insecure email account under the name “Mrs Blurt” (and boasting of blurting as a way of deterring spies is, shall we say, novel) to discuss govt business with Dominic Cummings. So I don’t have terribly high hopes

79. The govt continued to focus on the big stuff, by converting a privy council room in number 9 Downing St into a TV studio it dubbed “the best in the world” – but then again, isn’t everything in this list?

80. The “best in the world” studio isn’t big enough to fit socially distanced journalists, the PM hasn’t even got an official spokesman, and Civil Service regulations prevent one from being appointed but the govt hadn’t realised that