Following yesterday's brilliant Guest Blog and Friday's important but rather turgid Select Committee evidence, I feel compelled to go 'off piste' with yet more evidence of how the pandemic is providing perfect cover for sociopath Dominic Cummings to continue his anarchic and disruptive games that threaten so many aspects of our democratic structures. This from the Guardian/Observer has his grubby fingers all over it:-
Boris Johnson is reported to have offered jobs at the head of two of Britain’s most important media organisations to two outspoken critics of the BBC. Paul Dacre, former editor of the Daily Mail, has been asked to run the national broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, while Lord Moore, the former editor of the Daily Telegraph and biographer of Margaret Thatcher, is believed to be considering accepting the role of chairman of the BBC.
The provocative choice of two such hardline anti-BBC voices has prompted anger and dismay across the broadcasting and entertainment industry. Speaking to the Observer on Saturday evening the Labour peer Andrew Adonis summed up the response of many to the news. “If true this is Cummings operating straight out of the Trump playbook with the intent to undermine our democratic institutions.”
The former government minister continued: “These would be really disgraceful appointments. Neither Paul Dacre at Ofcom nor Charles Moore at the BBC would believe in the mission of the institution they are running. Dacre demonstrably doesn’t believe in impartially and statutorily regulated media and Moore doesn’t believe in public service broadcasting, as his refusal to pay the licence fee demonstrates.”
But reactions on Saturday evening were not all predictable. Even the iconoclastic Jeremy Clarkson, not normally aligned with the affronted liberal reaction, has spoken of his shock at the news. “I’d rather drive my lambo off a cliff than see Charles Moore as chairman,” he said. “BBC will go up in flames like one of my caravans.”
“Coffin. Nail. UK” was the simple comment on Twitter on Saturday evening of the film star Hugh Grant, who has campaigned for press regulation. The former editor of the Guardian Alan Rusbridger has also suggested that the fabric of British society is under attack. “Paul Dacre to run Ofcom, Charles Moore to run the BBC. Because Boris wants them. No process. NO joke. This is what an oligarchy looks like.”
Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former spin doctor, tweeted more in sorrow than anger. “In a week when a genuinely great editor like Harry Evans has died, only Boris Johnson could resurrect Paul Dacre.” Jo Stevens, the shadow culture secretary, said: “Throughout this crisis, one of Boris Johnson’s overriding priorities has been handing out cushy jobs, public contracts and taxpayers’ cash without proper scrutiny. People are worried about their jobs and health. The prime minister should be showing the leadership our country needs, not seeking undue influence over our independent institutions.”
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat MP, said the potential appointments were a desperate attempt by No 10 to “wind up the other side of the culture war”. He added: “These are people who are in power and are determined not to be held to account. It’s almost a laughable move.”
One veteran British broadcaster pointed out that Moore has not only refused to buy a television licence, but has boasted in the past that he does not watch television. “He is a journalist with no knowledge of running any institution and zero interest in broadcasting.”
A long-term BBC manager told the Observer that the appointments of two rightwing Brexiters, should they go ahead, showed a lack of faith in the industry and would eventually lead to commercialisation and an end to home-grown talent and entertainment shows.
Dacre, a hate-figure on the left but a defender of press freedom, is said by the Sunday Times to be in talks about the role at Ofcom and was approached by the prime minister in February, before the Covid-19 pandemic struck. He is believed to be trying to ascertain how much freedom he would have to crack down on supposed BBC bias and to strip the corporation back to its core public service remit.
Moore is said to be on the brink of signing up for the job at the BBC, although he will have to weather an incoming storm about the fact the job was not properly advertised. If he takes the chairman’s seat, it will clear the way for the decriminalisation of non-payment of the BBC licence fee, something which would hit BBC revenue by around £200m a year.
A government spokesman said the application process for the new chair of the BBC will be underway shortly, adding: “It is an open recruitment process and all public appointments are subject to a robust and fair selection criteria.”
Jean Seaton, the BBC’s official historian, said that the appointment of Moore might have been possible to defend on its own. A BBC sceptic and senior journalist might be someone’s preferred candidate. “But it is the idea of the two of them in tandem that would be such a disaster and cannot be defended,” she said.
Downing Street sources have so far attempted to calm the impending row by praising the new director general, Tim Davie, and emphasising the government’s support of public service broadcasting.
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This from the New European:-
The pro-hunting anti-licence fee Brexiteer lined up to run the BBC
In a Britain where Gavin Williamson is education secretary, Suella Braverman is attorney general, Liam Fox is our candidate to lead the WTO and Priti Patel is home secretary, it comes as little surprise to hear of Boris Johnson’s supposed choice as the new chairman of the BBC Board.
As the Mail on Sunday asked, “Is Boris about to make Charles Moore – a pro-hunting, anti-licence fee Brexiteer – the new BBC chairman? (It’s the question that will have Broadcasting House wokerati choking on their turmeric lattes)”. A full house there for those of us playing Mail headline cliché bingo.
If you’ve had the good fortune to miss him, Moore is the fogeyish Tory hat-trick specialist who has not only edited all three of the Conservative Party’s house journals – the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs, plus the Spectator – but also wrote three punishing volumes of Margaret Thatcher’s 2,848-page biography. You might also know him as the pundit, who, in August last year, attacked actual national treasure Olivia Colman for having a “left wing face” which made her unsuitable to play the Queen in Netflix’s The Crown.
Old Etonian Moore later explained that, “the Queen’s mouth expresses an acceptance – strong‑minded yet gentle – of whatever life may throw at her. Ms Colman’s has that hint of complaint and hauteur which is such a feature of the educated left”. Conceding the actor’s point that you did not need to look exactly like someone to play them, he added that this was “why it is ridiculous to attack actors for blacking up”. A bold rejection, that, of the first law of holes (‘when you are in a hole, stop digging’).
But then, as Moore declared earlier this month, “newspaper columnists are paid to have opinions. If we express these loud and clear, this sometimes successfully conceals the fact that our opinions can be idiotic”. Alas, it seems that both his volume and clarity knobs have been defective for some time, as evidenced by his thoughts in 2016 on the tragedy of the Tory leader who took Britain into the referendum: “You often hear of people being ‘trapped in poverty’, but it is also possible to be trapped in wealth. This is David Cameron’s fate.”
Not long after the War of Colman’s Face, Moore launched the Battle of the NHS Bulge, telling readers that “nurses and ancillary staff… are often disproportionately tubby” and wondering “are they discouraged from eating too many American-style muffins?” He is in favour of the restoration of imperial measurements (“I bet petrol prices would be forced down if we could see the enormous cost of a gallon”, he wrote recently) and against what he sees as coronavirus hype.
In March he appeared to think the biggest problem facing Britain was a lack of coffins due to panic-buying. “People are not, so far, dying in unusual numbers (but) without coffins, body bags may have to be permitted,” Moore wrote. “Unless properly informed, the public will assume the coffin shortage is because ‘people are dying’ in unprecedented quantities”. Helpfully, the British public soon cleared up any ambiguity by actually dying in unprecedented quantities. Still, none of this silliness disqualifies Moore from becoming chair of the BBC board.
The pro-hunting anti-licence fee Brexiteer lined up to run the BBC
In a Britain where Gavin Williamson is education secretary, Suella Braverman is attorney general, Liam Fox is our candidate to lead the WTO and Priti Patel is home secretary, it comes as little surprise to hear of Boris Johnson’s supposed choice as the new chairman of the BBC Board.
As the Mail on Sunday asked, “Is Boris about to make Charles Moore – a pro-hunting, anti-licence fee Brexiteer – the new BBC chairman? (It’s the question that will have Broadcasting House wokerati choking on their turmeric lattes)”. A full house there for those of us playing Mail headline cliché bingo.
If you’ve had the good fortune to miss him, Moore is the fogeyish Tory hat-trick specialist who has not only edited all three of the Conservative Party’s house journals – the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs, plus the Spectator – but also wrote three punishing volumes of Margaret Thatcher’s 2,848-page biography. You might also know him as the pundit, who, in August last year, attacked actual national treasure Olivia Colman for having a “left wing face” which made her unsuitable to play the Queen in Netflix’s The Crown.
Old Etonian Moore later explained that, “the Queen’s mouth expresses an acceptance – strong‑minded yet gentle – of whatever life may throw at her. Ms Colman’s has that hint of complaint and hauteur which is such a feature of the educated left”. Conceding the actor’s point that you did not need to look exactly like someone to play them, he added that this was “why it is ridiculous to attack actors for blacking up”. A bold rejection, that, of the first law of holes (‘when you are in a hole, stop digging’).
But then, as Moore declared earlier this month, “newspaper columnists are paid to have opinions. If we express these loud and clear, this sometimes successfully conceals the fact that our opinions can be idiotic”. Alas, it seems that both his volume and clarity knobs have been defective for some time, as evidenced by his thoughts in 2016 on the tragedy of the Tory leader who took Britain into the referendum: “You often hear of people being ‘trapped in poverty’, but it is also possible to be trapped in wealth. This is David Cameron’s fate.”
Not long after the War of Colman’s Face, Moore launched the Battle of the NHS Bulge, telling readers that “nurses and ancillary staff… are often disproportionately tubby” and wondering “are they discouraged from eating too many American-style muffins?” He is in favour of the restoration of imperial measurements (“I bet petrol prices would be forced down if we could see the enormous cost of a gallon”, he wrote recently) and against what he sees as coronavirus hype.
In March he appeared to think the biggest problem facing Britain was a lack of coffins due to panic-buying. “People are not, so far, dying in unusual numbers (but) without coffins, body bags may have to be permitted,” Moore wrote. “Unless properly informed, the public will assume the coffin shortage is because ‘people are dying’ in unprecedented quantities”. Helpfully, the British public soon cleared up any ambiguity by actually dying in unprecedented quantities. Still, none of this silliness disqualifies Moore from becoming chair of the BBC board.
What should disqualify him is his undisguised loathing for the BBC and its staff. In the past few weeks, he has written that Auntie is in the middle of “a cultural revolution against being white, being British, being male and taking pride in our history and culture”.
He claims that people within it are “mutinously determined” to assist the EU, and says the organisation exhibits “weakness masquerading as liberal virtue” which means “direct bias has been permitted almost unpunished. This is visible… in famous cases, like Emily Maitlis’s diatribe against Dominic Cummings”. A diatribe for which Maitlis, you might remember, actually was punished.
When the BBC needs a defender it is getting a defunder, who believes the licence fee is “an offence to freedom” and who hints at scrapping Radios 1 and 2, together with unnamed “entertainment channels”. In January he wrote “I do not necessarily disagree that some things on the BBC – notably Radio 3 and 4 – are good for our culture. If they are, ways, such as subscription, can be found of paying for them.”
What on earth is the point of hiring as the figurehead of the BBC someone who not only despises much of its output, its employees and its means of funding but actually despises the organisation itself and proposes breaking it up into smithereens? You might as well put Greta Thunberg in charge of the third runway at Heathrow. Or David Frost in charge of the Brexit trade negotiations.
The answer is that appointing Moore or someone like him will help the prime minister’s special adviser to do what he does best – create an atmosphere of fear and pressure which leads BBC dissenters to quit (see his ongoing work in the Conservative Party and the civil service).
In any choice between the British Broadcasting Corporation and the bully Dominic Cummings, Johnson is picking the BDC over the BBC every time.
He claims that people within it are “mutinously determined” to assist the EU, and says the organisation exhibits “weakness masquerading as liberal virtue” which means “direct bias has been permitted almost unpunished. This is visible… in famous cases, like Emily Maitlis’s diatribe against Dominic Cummings”. A diatribe for which Maitlis, you might remember, actually was punished.
When the BBC needs a defender it is getting a defunder, who believes the licence fee is “an offence to freedom” and who hints at scrapping Radios 1 and 2, together with unnamed “entertainment channels”. In January he wrote “I do not necessarily disagree that some things on the BBC – notably Radio 3 and 4 – are good for our culture. If they are, ways, such as subscription, can be found of paying for them.”
What on earth is the point of hiring as the figurehead of the BBC someone who not only despises much of its output, its employees and its means of funding but actually despises the organisation itself and proposes breaking it up into smithereens? You might as well put Greta Thunberg in charge of the third runway at Heathrow. Or David Frost in charge of the Brexit trade negotiations.
The answer is that appointing Moore or someone like him will help the prime minister’s special adviser to do what he does best – create an atmosphere of fear and pressure which leads BBC dissenters to quit (see his ongoing work in the Conservative Party and the civil service).
In any choice between the British Broadcasting Corporation and the bully Dominic Cummings, Johnson is picking the BDC over the BBC every time.
--oo00oo--
All this has to be viewed in the context of the on-going war between No 10 and the media with the disgraceful boycott of Piers Morgan at ITV's Good Morning Britain, Emily Maitless at BBC Newsnight and Jon Snow at Channel 4 News. All completely respectable and responsible public broadcasters, but all with a track record of doing their public and democratic duty of holding a government to account.
Readers will recall how things escalated with Boris Johnson refusing to be interviewed by 'challenging' journalists such as BBC's Andrew Neil during the December general election. Both he and Channel 4 really angered No 10 by 'empty chairing' and in Neil's case, memorably shaming Boris Johnson in a coruscating and damning statement to camera. I still wonder if this defiant action lies behind the surprising decision by the BBC to cancel his popular political shows and the very public falling out after some 30 years with the Corporation. But Neil is not only leaving, he's setting up a rival channel. This from BBC website:-
Broadcaster Andrew Neil has paid tribute to the BBC after announcing he will be leaving after 25 years.
The 71-year-old journalist is to become chairman of new TV channel GB News, which is due to launch early next year. He said he was leaving the BBC, where he has presented shows such as Daily Politics and helped front its election coverage, with a "heavy heart". The BBC said he had "informed and entertained millions of viewers" over the years.
Neil's last appearance for the BBC will be in early November when he will help lead its coverage of the US presidential election. The former Sunday Times editor has been at the heart of the BBC's political coverage for the best part of three decades. As well as presenting Daily Politics and its successor Politics Live, he was the host of the popular late-night discussion show This Week for many years. His penetrating and often combative general election interviews with party leaders won him wide critical acclaim.
He was involved in a row with Downing Street prior to last year's election when he publicly challenged Boris Johnson on air to appear on his show, saying his absence from the screens represented a "question of trust". The PM was the only one of the main party leaders not to be questioned by Neil.
Earlier this year, the BBC said the weekly Andrew Neil Interview show, which had been broadcast since 2019, would not be recommissioned but it was in discussion with him about other formats. Announcing his departure, Neil said these discussions had not come to fruition and he had decided to take the role of chair of GB News, where he will also host a daily show.
"With heavy heart I announce I will be leaving the BBC," he wrote on Twitter. "Despite sterling efforts by new DG (director general) to come up with other programming opportunities, it could not quite repair damage done when Andrew Neil Show cancelled early summer." He thanked everyone who had helped him during his time at the BBC, describing them as the "best of the best" and saying the corporation "will always be special to me".
In a statement, the BBC said it would like to give its "heartfelt thanks" to Neil, describing him as a "formidable and talented broadcaster. For years, he was at the heart of the irreverent and much-loved This Week and played a key role in the Daily and Sunday Politics, Politics Live and the BBC's general election coverage," it said. "We are sorry the US election coverage will be his last BBC presentation for the foreseeable future but he will always be welcome at the BBC." GB News is a new 24-hour news channel which will compete with the BBC, ITV and Sky News. Its financial backers include the US media giant Discovery.
The BBC's media editor Amol Rajan said its launch and Neil's signing was a "big moment for British culture".
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I'll wrap this up with a reminder of how vitally important independent journalism is to a democracy with news of the passing of Harold Evans last week. I grew up being an avid reader of the Sunday Times and still have a vast collection of their ground-breaking photojournalistic magazines. This from Amol Rajan BBC Media editor:-
Harry Evans personified not only the noblest possibilities of journalism, but of social mobility in the 20th Century too. Born into what he called "the respectable working-class", his route to national and international acclaim via the streets of Manchester and Darlington - the latter as editor of the Northern Echo - is sadly a route few take today. He embodied the most romantic ideal of an editor: a humble hack taking on mighty forces through the dogged pursuit of truth.
Though he later fell out with Rupert Murdoch, and never forgave him, in his 14 years at the helm of the Sunday Times he redefined journalism itself. He was a master craftsman, in a trade where practical wisdom was precious and vital; and he combined a flair for layout, projection and design with a remarkable nose for a story, particularly those with human suffering at their heart.
But above all he was brave. During his reign, it seemed no super-rich bully or powerful government could intimidate him. In our era of information overload, diminished trust in journalism, and fewer people willing to pay for news, the nostalgia for what he represented is impossible to resist. As he put it himself in the title of his wonderful memoir from 2009, he reached the top in Vanished Times. He had the resources, and the time, to hold power to account - and he did uniquely well. Mixed with his charm and sheer decency, this put journalism itself in a debt to him that will never be fully serviced.
Journalists have paid tribute to his campaigning work on the Thalidomide scandal and other injustices. Alan Rusbridger, former editor of the Guardian, said he was a "master craftsman of journalism" who "was the editor we all wanted to be". Andrew Neil, a former editor of the Sunday Times, described Sir Harold as the "greatest editor of his generation" and one with an "unerring instinct for a story".
Author Robert Harris told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Sir Harold was an outsider coming in to the Sunday Times, the "son of a railway man who wanted to take on the establishment".
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who once worked as a journalist at the Times newspaper, described Sir Harold as a "true pioneer of investigative journalism" who "will always be remembered" for "tirelessly campaigning on behalf of those who were affected" by the Thalidomide scandal that he exposed.
'Giant among journalists'
Ian Murray, executive director of the Society of Editors, said: "Sir Harold Evans was a giant among journalists who strove to put the ordinary man and woman at the heart of his reporting." And Glen Harrison, a Thalidomide survivor and deputy chairman of the campaign group Thalidomide UK, described Sir Harold as "an outstanding human being for our cause".
After leaving the Times, Sir Harold and his second wife, Tina Brown, moved to New York. She edited Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, while he became founding editor of Conde Nast magazine. In 2011, at the age of 82, Sir Harold was appointed editor-at-large at Reuters, the organisation's editor-in-chief describing him as "one of the greatest minds in journalism".
Important blog piece today Jim. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThis news should not be considered as a singular event, it's part of the process that leads to dictatorship.
ReplyDeleteThere are common threads that dictatorships need, and the Tories have been sowing them together for years now from preventing legal challange to government decisions, saddling the population with individual debt, eroding workers rights, and instilling fear and hate on foreign nationals and membership of the EU. Controlling the press is just another step.
It really is worth looking at what this government has done in the last decade, and compare it with the things dictatorships are created, and what they need to exist.
It makes for scary reading.
Just a snippet that may give food for thought.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/a-10-step-plan-for-turning-a-democracy-into-a-dictatorship-from-robert-reich-2018-08-06
'Getafix
The ten steps from the piece Getafix has linked:
Delete1. First, destroy labor unions, so people have no way to bargain for higher wages and less capacity for political organization.
2. Crack down on college students, so they won’t oppose you (hint: burden them with so much student debt and make it so hard for them to find good jobs that they won’t dare rock the boat).
3. Undermine public education, so people are less able to think critically for themselves.
4. Cut deals with rich business executives and billionaires that if they back you you’ll reduce their taxes, slash government spending on the poor, and eliminate regulations that impinge on their profits.
5. Make most people economically anxious, frustrated, angry, and insecure.
6. Convince them their problems stem from “them” — foreigners, immigrants, racial or ethnic or religious minorities, intellectuals.
7. Make them cynical about democracy.
8. Convince them all they need is a strongman who will fix everything.
9. Fill the airwaves with big lies.
10. Get elected, and then take over.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/sep/27/uk-schools-told-not-to-use-anti-capitalist-material-in-teaching
DeleteThe government has ordered schools in England not to use resources from organisations which have expressed a desire to end capitalism.
Department for Education (DfE) guidance issued on Thursday for school leaders and teachers involved in setting the relationship, sex and health curriculum categorised anti-capitalism as an “extreme political stance” and equated it with opposition to freedom of speech, antisemitism and endorsement of illegal activity.
The guidance, part of lengthy guidelines for implementing the statutory curriculum, said: “Schools should not under any circumstances use resources produced by organisations that take extreme political stances on matters. This is the case even if the material itself is not extreme, as the use of it could imply endorsement or support of the organisation.”
DeleteIt listed examples of what were described as “extreme political stances”, such as “a publicly stated desire to abolish or overthrow democracy, capitalism, or to end free and fair elections”; opposition to freedom of speech; the use of racist, including antisemitic, language; the endorsement of illegal activity; and a failure to condemn illegal activities done in support of their cause.
It’s all about control. Read 1984.
ReplyDeletehttps://bylinetimes.com/2020/06/29/a-hard-rain-johnson-gove-and-cummings-drive-britain-towards-elective-dictatorship/
Delete29th June 2020:-
DeleteBritain is changing from a parliamentary democracy towards an elective dictatorship faster than people realise after Boris Johnson’s election victory.
The announcement that Sir Mark Sedwill, the Cabinet Secretary and National Security Advisor, has quit is the most high profile indicator of a revolution that will be sweeping through Whitehall, Parliament and the courts over the next four years if Johnson, Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings get their way.
Sir Mark will have to be replaced, under Civil Service Commission rules, by another permanent or former permanent secretary – but the new National Security Advisor, David Frost, is currently leading the Brexit negotiations with the EU and is a committed Brexiter and darling of the Vote Leave movement.
Last week, the Prime Minister’s controversial chief advisor Cummings was reported to have warned that a “hard rain” would soon fall on the Civil Service.
What has not been noticed is that the vast majority of new Whitehall appointments are now going to business and data experts – part of Cummings’ revolution to bring in ‘disrupters’ and, in his words, “weirdos and misfits” into the heart of Whitehall.
The search for a new permanent secretary for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) already involves a New York recruitment agency, Russell Reynolds, which states on its website: “The organisations that don’t disrupt themselves are the ones that will be disrupted.”
Now, BEIS is recruiting a new head of behavioural change, data and insight with the aim of using data to revolutionise its communications strategy.
A BEIS spokesman said that this will be beneficial: “Our recent Coronavirus campaign activity successfully reached some of the UK’s most disadvantaged groups, including vulnerable workers and business owners from a black and minority ethnic (BAME) background, via TV adverts on community-focused channels, such as the Sikh Channel, British Muslim TV, and Islam Channels (Urdu and English) as well as translated radio live reads. As a result, this insight-led strategy helped lead to an increase in the take-up of Government support measures amongst these groups.”
The Department for Work and Pensions is recruiting 16 business analysts to organise its “products” – benefits and pensions – and nine new software engineers.
The current 11 vacancies at the Cabinet Office are mainly data-orientated, with plans for new databases to be created for people with disabilities and black and ethnic minorities, including a new position to run a national location software system.
In a speech at the weekend, the Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove – and Vote Leave ally of both Johnson and Cummings – backed the chief advisor’s agenda, praising Cummings’ new £800 million advanced research projects agency which will allow scientists unlimited cash to follow their latest “crazy” ideas.
He also attacked the establishment and said that “the whole culture of Government, and the wider world of political commentary, is hostile to risk, adventure, experimentation and novelty”.
He then laid out the Government’s programme:
“We should… reform planning rules to fast track beautiful development, pioneer biodiversity net gain to offset any adverse consequences of development, better use anonymised NHS data to improve healthcare delivery, allow parents and others to compare schools on value-added, exam entries and attendance, among other factors, compare individual courts, judges and CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] managers on their efficacy on processing cases, look at how successful individual prisons are at delivering education and rehabilitation programmes, compare that with re-offending rates, assess the effectiveness of anti-radicalisation programmes, ask what value for money gains the Troubled Families Programme has secured, interrogate the basis on which defence procurement contracts are considered value for money, ask how we judge the real impact of development spending, and I could go on”
All of this is being accompanied by post-Brexit legislation that is allowing a power grab by ministers at the expense of Parliament and democratic accountability.
DeleteWhat was a parliamentary democracy which pooled some of its sovereignty as a member of the European Union is being turned into an executive democracy, in which ministers are taking power for themselves and bypassing Parliament.
Far from ‘taking back control’ of our laws, Parliament – the elected legislature at the heart of our representative democracy – is being demoted. Its main role in passing laws is being undermined by ministers ruling by decree.
A report by the House of Lords Constitution Committee has forensically examined every piece of Brexit legislation and discovered extraordinary changes on the way in the next year.
The Government is using what are commonly known as Henry VIII powers – or statutory instruments – to give it authoritarian powers.
These include powers to create new criminal offences, impose unlimited fines on people, overrule in some cases legislation in the Scottish Parliament, and 150 new powers to changes duties and taxes on business and individuals.
Even with something as mundane as the granting a road traffic goods licences, ministers have not bothered to even specify to Parliament how they will use the powers.
At most, Parliament will get 90 minutes to debate each change and, in some cases, it will only be able to debate the change after it is already law.
In his speech, Gove also took aim at two other powerful bodies that provide accountability: the National Audit Office and select committees. He blamed them for the failure of Whitehall to be bold:
“Far too often, innovation in Government is treated as though it were a mischief rather than a model. The default mechanism of the NAO, PAC [Public Accounts Committee], other select committees and various commentators is that any departure from the status quo must be assumed to be more downside than upside. Had they been able to interrogate George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton in 1783 they would have concluded that American independence was an expensive, untried and unjustifiable innovation. In Treasury terms it would have been novel and contentious and therefore stopped”
The position of the courts is also alarming. Ministers have taken powers under the EU Withdrawal Act to specify what retained EU law they should follow – not just at the Supreme Court, the final court of appeal in the UK, but also in the lower courts and at tribunals.
Ministers have not published how this will be implemented, despite demands from MPs and peers to do so. Given that case law arguments are a key part of any trial, the peers rightly fear that is going to lead to chaos in the courts, with numerous appeals against judgments. Combined with this, the fact that ministers want to reform the judicial review procedure and – if Gove is right – assess the efficiency of judges handling cases, this is a power grab designed to reduce the independence of the judiciary.
By the time of the next scheduled General Election in 2024, if Cummings and Gove have their way, Britain will have a smaller, more authoritarian Government. The judiciary will be less independent and Parliament will not have to meet as frequently – because many changes to law will be made by ministers without the need for primary legislation. There will be more time for Johnson to play tennis and go for runs in the grounds of Buckingham Palace.
The only thing that could stop this authoritarian drift is the incompetence and arrogance of this Government itself, which has already been demonstrated by its failure to tackle the COVID-19 crisis competently.
The Government’s next steps are going to be restoring the economy and negotiating in a post-Brexit world – at the same time. Will it be a recipe for chaos?
Personally I'm in favour of this. The BBC needs radically reforming. It represents a narrow liberal metropolitan London-centric view of the world, yet we all have to pay for it. Therefore it's essentially taxation without representation. It reminds me of NAPO, ie existing off the financial contributions of others to pursue their own vanity projects. At least with NAPO you can choose not to pay!
ReplyDeleteYes! Far better it be a State directed organisation with political allegiance, censorship and propaganda and still have to pay for it!
DeleteTaxation with less representation.
Sky news.
ReplyDeleteThe government wants "a strong, big person who can hold the BBC to account" amid reports the corporation's next chair could be Boris Johnson's former newspaper boss.
Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden praised the "strengths" of both Charles Moore - the former editor of the Daily Telegraph, who has been linked to the BBC role - and Paul Dacre, the ex-editor of the Daily Mail who has been touted as the new chair of broadcasting regulator Ofcom.
The two prominent Brexiteers are reported to be the prime minister's choice to take on the two influential positions
Mr Dowden, speaking to Sky News' Sophy Ridge On Sunday show, said he and Mr Johnson "have been in touch with each other a lot" about the two roles.
However, he refused to be drawn on "speculation about different candidates".
"Everyone is getting a little bit ahead of themselves with this," the Cabinet minister said.
"We will be launching shortly the process for the appointment of both the chairman of the BBC and the Ofcom chair and at that point applicants will be welcome to apply for it."
Mr Dowden said the government was seeking "a strong, big person who can hold the BBC to account", adding: "It is important that we have genuine, robust scrutiny of the BBC and I'm looking forward to driving that agenda."
Lord Moore, who was handed a peerage by Downing Street earlier this year, was Mr Johnson's editor during the prime minister's spell as a Daily Telegraph journalist.
The Sunday Times reported the prime minister had asked him to take on the BBC chairmanship around a month ago and that it was virtually a "done deal".
A source close to Mr Johnson was quoted as telling the newspaper: "This is part of a process of the prime minister putting allies in key positions."
Lord Moore has been a strident critic of the BBC licence fee and has previously accused the corporation of having "despised" Brexit voters.
He claimed the BBC was "a body with its own impermeable, uniform, would-be-right-on culture" in January this year.
The 63-year-old has been criticised for his previous writings about Islam and climate change.
Mr Dacre, 71, was editor of the pro-Brexit Daily Mail for more than 25 years and was critical of the BBC during his time in charge of the newspaper.
He would help regulate all broadcasters should he take on the Ofcom role.
Tory MP Steve Baker, a Brexiteer, told Sky News he looked forward to the media being "a bit more conservative and pragmatic in what is being reported" if Lord Moore and Mr Dacre are given the roles.
But Labour criticised the government following the reports of the pair's pending appointments.
Shadow culture secretary Jo Stevens said: "The whole idea of announcing appointments before a process has actually taken place is a bit strange.
"I think the public will be wondering where the government's priorities are in this, why are they interfering in an open process."
Shadow Home Office minister Jess Phillips said: "Just always know they look after their own and don't give a toss about anything but making sure their mates have jobs."
Current Ofcom chairman Terence Burns is due to leave before the end of the year, while BBC chairman Sir David Clementi will stand down in February.
The BBC did not comment on the reports.
Interesting article that might be thought provoking for those who have to (or can) work from home.
ReplyDeleteCoronavirus may prove a useful tool that employers can use to exploit the workforce.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/career/the-looming-legal-minefield-of-working-from-home/ar-BB19sG36?li=AAnZ9Ug
'Getafix
“At one company, staff at home were told to keep a video conference call open all day so a manager could watch what they were doing and issue any orders that popped into his head, as he always did in the office.”
DeleteReminds me of a probation manager I know !!!
I know of one who asks staff questions after CPD teams meetings to check they've watched and not just logged on. Worse this is condoned. Stupid woman. Get a life and treat your staff with decency. Problem is there's a surge in micro managing and bullying Spos and senior management supporting them by doing nothing about it. As if the job was not miserable enough.
DeleteSounds like someone I'm working for currently!!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/sep/27/charles-moore-paul-dacre-on-the-bbc-in-their-own-words
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/sep/28/coronavirus-live-news-global-deaths-near-1m-as-india-poised-to-pass-6m-cases
ReplyDeleteFacilities serving alcohol on the parliamentary estate are understood to be exempt from the earlier closing time on the basis that they fall under the description of “a workplace canteen”.
Bar staff and customers in the Palace of Westminster will not be required to follow stricter rules on face coverings introduced for other licensed premises. Nor will visitors to parliamentary bars be asked to supply a name and number on entry, with all responsibility falling to a team that acts as the point of contact for any suspected or confirmed coronavirus cases among MPs and staff on the estate. MPs do not have to register their presence in parliament and are only advised to stay away if they have symptoms.
Original story here:
Deletehttps://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/parliament-s-bars-exempt-from-10pm-coronavirus-curfew-wb6g6bbgp
Four news stories on this autumnal September morning - UK MPs exempt themselves from coronavirus curfews, anti-capitalist teachings are outlawed in UK schools, Trump's tax returns show he has paid a whopping $1,500 in tax in the last ten (10) years and there have now been 1M deaths from the coronavirus worldwide.
ReplyDeleteThis is what we have allowed the world to become, i.e. a divided world where 1% stuff their pockets & do as they please, while 99% are treated with utter contempt.
No doubt the police are already on their way to arrest me as I post this call to arms, this online insurrection, this "extreme political stance".
Trump spends 750 dollors on his tax, but 30,000 dollors on his hair!
DeleteBoth Trump and his hairdresser should have difficult questions to answer methinks!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54320030
ReplyDelete"An extra 400,000 hectares of English countryside will be protected to support the recovery of nature under plans to be announced by Boris Johnson."
How?
He'll just ask his landowning chums to file false reports about use of the land they own, ensuring they know which details to miss out, e.g. use of pesticides, culling of so-called 'predators', illicit developments, extraction of resources.
From Telegraph.
ReplyDelete(who gets the contract?)
Prisoners’ phone calls are to be monitored by Artificial Intelligence (AI) in a bid to stop terrorists and gangland bosses continuing their criminality from jail.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is trialling new technology to sift through the 64 million calls a year made by offenders from prison phones in order to better spot and then target organised criminality and extremism.
The technology records, transcribes and searches for key words or patterns in phone conversations chosen at random or selected because of suspicions around particular crime kingpins or terrorists.
Current checks are carried out by trained prison officers with headphones sitting and listening to live or taped calls which is expensive and labour-intensive given that the 64 million calls a year generate some four million hours of call data across more than 110 prisons in England and Wales.
The AI or machine learning software would enable more calls to be checked while also filtering the hours of recordings to help officers listen only to those identified as the most suspicious.
It would also provide a database of transcripts that could be accessed and searched by other law enforcement agencies and police to help investigate serious and organised crime or radicalisation by prisoners from the inside.
A source told The Daily Telegraph: “We have piloted and are continuing to develop software that will enable us to record and monitor calls. It is very much part of ongoing work to combat serious and organised crime and extremist behaviour in prison.”
Cont...
DeletePrison governors are by law allowed to record and monitor designated or randomised calls except those by prisoners to exempted people such as their lawyers, MPs or officials at the Criminal Case Review Commission.
It is thought as few as one in 50 calls are currently monitored.
The MoJ has spent £10 million in the past two years expanding in-cell phones to nearly half of the jails in England and Wales in a bid to stem the flow of illegal mobiles, maintain family ties and reduce tension on prison wings. It has also used mobile phone blocking technology, driving more to use official phones.
US prisons already deploy AI technology which, in one case, spotted the phrase “three-way” regularly cropping up in conversations.
Officers initially thought it was a sexual allusion, until further analysis established it was code for illegally bringing a third person onto a call from an inmate.
Prisoners are only allowed to call designated people or numbers. The AI industry claims the technology reduces the cost a thousand fold, to little more than four pence an hour.
“It is going to be cheaper than what takes place at the moment,” said an industry source developing the technology. “These are highly trained prison officers who are listening into these phone calls, when actually they could be better served in the jail itself.
“If you introduce a system, which can listen to every phone call, or list every phone call, which is not legally privileged, and monitor it for key words and phrases, and patterns we only need you to listen to these 30 calls today. That actually enables you to do more monitoring with fewer people.”
An MoJ spokesman said: “We are exploring ways in which we can improve the monitoring of calls. This will boost our efforts to thwart extremist activity and serious organised crime behind bars – and could ultimately lead to more convictions and more protection for the public.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8780215/amp/Licence-fee-evaders-WONT-face-prison-new-plans-decriminalise-non-payment.html
ReplyDeleteJuly 2019 - "Johnson trousers £10K from financier who made millions shorting sterling in wake of referendum"
ReplyDeleteMarch 2020 - "Hedge fund tycoon Crispin Odey has made £115 million from betting on a stock market crash due to the coronavirus. He told the Mail on Sunday he predicted a crash, and has spent the last three weeks cashing in on it."
Now the odious Odey is facing allegations of historical sexual assault.
Today: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/sep/28/hedge-fund-boss-crispin-odey-in-court-on-indecent-assault-charge
"Chairman of the bench Richard Duncalf declined an application by the prosecution to have the case sent to the crown court, and listed it for a two-day trial at Hendon magistrates’ court on 17 and 18 February."
In other unpleasant historical news...
"In 1990, Mr Johnson was secretly recorded agreeing to provide Mr Collier's address to friend Darius Guppy, who wanted to arrange for the journalist to have his ribs cracked in revenge for investigating his activities.
In the event no attack took place, and after the recording came to light in 1995, Mr Johnson - who had been the Brussels correspondent of The Daily Telegraph at the time - dismissed the conversation as a joke."
The journalist, Stuart Collier, is still waiting for an apology from Johnson some 30 years later.
Just finished watching the test-&-trace Panorama. Found it somewhat inevitable that Serco et al have been given yet another massive bung of public funds for yet another colossal failure to deliver. I have said since the earliest days that local Public Health professionals should take the lead - something Leicester City Council proved in the programme, effectively baling out the pisspoor privateer providers & lining Dido's pockets while fleecing the council taxpayers of Leicester.
ReplyDeleteSo much money has been haemorrhaged - up to £27/hour for tracers with nothing to do for shift after shift... reminded me of the £1500/month thrown at the 'excellent leaders' to work from their front parlours while they whistled their staff into the frontline.
Why did nobody think of providing probation offices with home testing kits to hand out to those attending for appointments? Or placing a test-&-trace body to work with probation staff who may well be having contact with some of the least accessible members of the community?
Why did none of the'excellent leaders' think of that? Where's my £1500?
Fucking tossers, every last one.
I've never been more pleased at making the change to dispensing expensive coffee to grateful addicts.
Totally agree about Serco and Co being allowed (encouraged) to put their snouts in the public purse again, especially as they outsourced 80% of their contract to sub contractors within a fortnight of being awarded it.
DeleteIt could only be a mess.
However, I think the real lottery winners of the track and trace fiasco are Deloitte. Huge amounts of money to a global accountancy firm for Johnsons 'Moonshoot' testing, a testing program that will be charged for to the individual.
There's no mistake, this Government is using public funds to privatise another great chunk of our NHS.
It's shameful and dirty, and it's being done in plain sight, right under our noses!
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/deloitte-gets-another-huge-covid-contract-for-crazy-plan-to-test-millions-each-day/
'Getafix
Maybe we need to be as worried about neuroscience?
Deletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_fourfm
Numerous probation staff were seconded through the civil service to track and trace. Track and trace didn’t want them and sent them back.
DeleteProbation heads of Service receiving £1500 bonuses through the Covid lockdown is disgusting. I wouldn’t trust most even with handing out testing kits.
T&T held onto the good ones.
DeleteWhat Probation staff??
DeleteReminded me of our job. Pages and pages of instructions to read instead of proper training. Systems that send error messages that don't make sense. But their pay is way above ours and lack of work from the crap system, maybe not then
DeleteA message to the fuckwits who are ignoring the simplest most basic rules of hygiene, i.e. masks in public spaces, no crowds & no close contact:
ReplyDeleteAll the virus wants & needs is a host.
All this govt wants & needs are scapegoats. So...
YOU, yes YOU Laddie - you're letting this useless excuse for a government off the hook.
The more you party the happier they are - because it means they can blame you when it all goes shitshape.
Show some courage, some restraint, some consideration.
FranK.
Frankie boy, I’m sure there’s a better outlet for your panic and threats. You keep on about what we need to do about the deadly coronavirus that is decimating the global population, and yet the government is telling us it can be averted;
Delete1. By social distancing 2 metres apart, or is it 1 metre, or maybe any distance is okay as long as soap, water and hand sanitiser is used.
2. Or maybe social distancing isn’t required as long as a cloth face covering that provides zero protection to infectious diseases is used, and ignore the doctors wearing PPE with visors to stop it entering through the eyes and ears.
3. By getting drunk and leaving pubs at 10pm, although a few weeks ago we were encouraged to queue up outside restaurants into the small hours.
4. By not visiting friends and relatives or gathering in more than groups of 6, but it’s okay to visit a busy supermarket, a place of education, a busy office or sit on a crowded train.
5. By taking a test that’s proven to be inaccurate in identifying exposure to a disease that can’t be defined, or a flu jab that has zero impact on coronavirus, and while awaiting a pending vaccine that will not be properly safety tested.
6. And if all fails we have all those Nightingale units that are sitting unused. They’ll be handy when they work out how people are being infected, especially from all those asymptomatic people.
The government’s “advice” is in forked tongue and relies on people being, well, sheep. I’ll get back to considering the risks of downloading the citizen tracking Coronavirus app using the 5g transmitter outside my window.