YET MORE LIES FROM THE MOUTHS OF THIS MALEVOLENT MISGOVERNMENT

On Monday of this week, pubs, theatres, museums, hotels and sports venues reopened in most parts of Britain. Read my last blogpost - here - to explore the reasons why it was a mistake to lift restrictions at this time. 

As the Daily Mirror commented on Monday, 'Boris Johnson this morning placed the responsibility for what happens next on the shoulders of the British public.' The newspaper cited his words: "I urge everyone to be cautious and take responsibility when enjoying new freedoms today".

The sub-text here reads: ' It will be your fault, not mine, if you catch the virus and die'.

 

COVID-19 Indian variant hot-spots - as of two days ago

The Daily Mirror continued: 'Many are asking whether the government acted cautiously and responsibly when it delayed adding India to the travel-ban red list. India was only added to the list two weeks after restrictions were placed on travel from Bangladesh and Pakistan despite having more cases per hundred thousand people than either of these two countries'. 

Was this true? And if so why was India made an exception?

The Daily Mirror explored the questions further, asking whether the delay was influenced by the fact that back then Johnson was still planning to travel to India to meet Modi, the Indian leader, with the hope of securing a post-Brexit trade deal. 

The Sunday Times, the day before, had quoted an anonymous Whitehall source saying: "It's very clear we should have closed the border to India earlier and that Boris did not do so because he didn't want to offend Modi."

Between April 9, when the restrictions were placed on Pakistan and Bangladesh, and April 23

when they were finally applied to India, 20,000 people arrived in the UK from India. 

Spelling it out in large print, this is misgovernment that will cost lives - administrative malfeasance is the charge. 

At the same time, it emerged that Priti Patel seems to haver lobbied Michael Gove on behalf of a Tory donor for a PPE contract worth £20 million and Matt Hancock personally intervened to help a former Conservative MP to secure a PPE deal worth £180 million. The stench of cronyism drifts across our political landscape.

And then the blatant lying began.

In the Commons on Monday, the health secretary Matt Hancock gave a detailed explanation for why India was not added to the travel red list at the same time as Pakistan and Bangladesh: "Positivity [for COVID-19] was three times higher among those arriving from Pakistan and Bangladesh than it was among those arriving from India".

This man is lying in the House of Commons - and getting away with it - and people would still vote for this party?!?

Ed Conway, Sky's economics and data editor, was quick to expose this lie:

"In the period from 25 March to 7 April, some 5.1% of passengers coming to the UK from India tested positive for Covid-19, not far below the 6.2% level recorded by passengers from Pakistan, and comfortably higher than the 3.7% of passengers coming from Bangladesh."  

But Hancock said there were three times as many Covid-19 cases in those coming from Pakistan and Bangladesh, compared with those arriving from India.

                                                   Whom do you believe?