Johnson: the detailed indictment

 

 

In an earlier post, Lest We Forget"  I have isolated four issues for which Prime Minister Johnson must be held responsible, and one pre-Johnson issue for which the Tory party is responsible, all of which should not be forgotten as the Tories bask in the successful roll-out of the vaccine by the NHS, for which they claim the credit, and which is leading to a welcome reduction in the restrains of lockdown.

The following items are nearly all taken from an article by Jonathan Freedland  in last Saturday's Guardian and form a very comprehensive list  of Mr Johnson's errors, omissions and excesses.

1. The mysteries surrounding the financing of the refurbishing of the Downing Street flat.
2. The post-Grenfell  Fire Safety Bill, which makes lease-holders responsible for making their flats safe.
3. The financing of the  2019 holiday in Mustique.
4. The breaking of the 2019 manifesto pledge to retain overseas  aid at 0.7% of GDP, leading to. . .
   
5. . . . the cutting by 80% of funding for the provision of clean water. . .
   
6. . . . cuts in UN Family Planning programmes . . 
7. . . . leading to increased child deaths
8. The highest (so far) Covid death toll in Europe . . .
   
9. . . . along with the deepest economic recession in the G7.
10. Delayed lockdown in March.
11. Delayed lockdown in September.
    
12. Multi family hug-in over Christmas, reduced at the last minute from five days to one.
13. Borders remaining open during much of  the crisis period.
14. Failure to take the early stages of the pandemic seriously by missing five Cobra meetings and. . .
    
15. . .  .permitting and attending an international rugby match and. . .
    
16. . . . permitting the Cheltenham (horse racing) Festival 2020 to continue with crowds.
17. Establishing  a VIP line  which gave barely qualified friends and Tory donors privileged access for  PPE contracts.
18. £37 billion spent over three years  on an ineffective Test, Trace and Isolate system.
19. Initial failure to  provide meals during holidays to schoolchildren  entitled to free meals in term time.
20. Failure to sack Dominic Cummings after his "eyesight testing" trip north against government guidelines.
21.  Failure to sack Robert Jenrick for unlawfully overturning a planning decision to save a Tory donor £45m.
22. Re-appointing Gavin Williamson to the cabinet only two months after  he had been sacked by Mrs May for leaking sensitive information.
23. Failure to sack Mr Williamson after the 2020 examinations fiasco.
24. Failing to sack Priti Patel after she had been found to have broken the ministerial code.
    
25. Promising there would be no border down the Irish Sea.
26. Signing up to  a protocol which established such a border.
27. Sacking, or causing to resign, six senior civil servants, induing the cabinet secretary.
28. Being prepared to break international law in the Internal Markets Bill.
29. Illegally proroguing parliament
30. Promulgating the lie of £350m per week for the NHS to support the Brexit campaign.
31. As Foreign Secretary, asserting that Mrs Zaghari- Ratcliffe had been training journalists in Iran, leading to her prolonged incarceration.
    
32. Joking that Sirte in Libya would be a nice place to visit once the dead bodies had been cleaned from the airport.
33. Allegedly claiming that he would prefer to see "bodies pile high" rather than introduce a lockdown.
34. As Mayor of London squandering  public money on a "Garden Bridge," High Wire crossing of the Thames and an airport on the Isle  of Grain . . .
    
35. . . .and channelling public money to his then girlfriend, Jennifer Arcuri.
36. Racist musings about the "half-Kenyan" Barack Obama.
37. Taunts about Muslim women as "bank robbers" and "letter boxes". . .
    
38. . . . and African children as "piccaninnies."    
39. Blaming "drunken fans" for the Hillsborough disaster. . . 
40. . . . and accusing the people of Liverpool of "wallowing in victimhood."
41. Making himself the arbiter of whether or not the ministerial code has been broken.
42. As a student, being a member of the Bullingdon club  which thought destroying restaurants was "fun."
43. At the WTO, blocking moves to persuade  "big pharma" to take the COVID Vaccines out of patent, so as to make the maximum  number of vaccines available to all countries at the lowest possible cost.