As the awful death toll from Covid-19 rises, there is a micro-drama being played out involving the Home Secretary Priti Patel, who hasn't been seen in public for weeks, and Yvette Cooper. The Coronavirus legislation passed hurriedly last month and many of the emergency measures so far announced impact the police, public spaces, borders, the charity sector, homelessness and so on and yet the person responsible for domestic affairs is nowhere to be seen. I find this very strange.
The Home Affairs select committee of the House of Commons, chaired by Yvette Cooper, also seem to find it odd that Priti Patel is refusing to appear in front of them to answer questions. Parliament is essentially suspended (again) and there is no scrutiny at all of the government and individual ministers. Patel has turned down four requests to sit before the committee.
The increasingly 'adversarial' correspondence between Cooper and Patel and published on the committee website, is revealing perhaps of a deeper personal animosity, although with Patel it's difficult to find people with whom she hasn't got some level of antipathy.
Cooper has been trying to agree a date with Patel for some time but Patel has said she can manage it only some time at the end of the month and offered private 'briefings' with her and officials rather than a public appearance. It seems she is wary about speaking off the cuff and given her record, who can blame her? Cooper wants a meeting before 15 April. There were two letters exchanged on Tuesday and one yesterday. We wait to see what happens today.
As the PM remains in intensive care albeit thankfully in an improving condition, Dominic Raab is in charge and will chair a COBRA meeting later today on whether or not to lift the lockdown anytiime soon (spoiler altert: no). So, it was timely that someone retweeted an article about him from Open Democracy in July 2018. I knew he was right-wing but I didn't realise quite how extreme he was or that he is a protege of the Institute of Economic Affairs, the think tank described by Andrew Marr as "undoubtedly the most influential think tank in modern British history".
One can dislike Boris Johnson for his scatter brained recklessness and lack of political conviction but I don't believe he would bite the head off your guinea pigs to prove how macho he is. Rabb probably would.
This video has been circulating on Twitter and it gives you an idea of the kind or person he is - not very nice.
These would be troubling times led by Jim Callaghan or Tony Blair but when we have a triumvirate at the top consisting of Patel, Raab and Sunak surrounding the idiot Johnson it's time to really worry.
Finally, the government seems to have finally latched on to mass testing. I noticed Reuters had an article yesterday (HERE) which included this:
"The UK scientists were also mostly convinced - and many still are - that, once the new virus escaped China, quarantine measures would likely not succeed. Minutes of technical committees reviewed by Reuters indicate that almost no attention was paid to preparing a programme of mass testing. Other minutes and interviews show Britain was following closely a well-laid plan to fight a flu pandemic - not this deadlier disease. The scientists involved, however, deny that the flu focus ultimately made much difference".
This is almost exactly the same as my post last Friday (HERE). If this happens more often I may start to become another Dr North. If I do, please let me know so that I can seek psychiatric treatment.
