The govt are acting as if they are beyond parliamentary scrutiny?
Q: Why are people are still unable to get tested & forced to drive hundreds of miles for a test? @TanDhesi
A: “I will not have this divisive language. I just won’t have it.
@MattHancock
It is a deliberate & well-rehearsed strategy
If asked about any govt failings, ministers go on the offensive
This was @BorisJohnson ystdy, accusing @Keir_Starmer of "continually trying to snipe from the sidelines & undermine what we are trying to do.”
"And so by malice, stealth & brutishness a pattern is set. Less & less transparency. Less & less scrutiny. Less & less accountability. Until they are entirely unleashed to bundle aside the truth and speak only their truths."
A lesson from history. Emerson Warner writing in 1949.
Acting affronted by scrutiny & rebutting anyone who questions their COVID response is integral to the govt's communications strategy
This was @MattHancock's response to @DrRosena, a front-line NHS worker, saying many of her colleagues feel let down by the govt's testing strategy
But beyond the feigned outrage (please post egs below🙂), the govt have deliberately & systematically made it hard to find out the facts
Daily briefings give a veneer of transparency BUT:
Questions are ignored
Data is not published
Minutes are withheld
Contracts aren't revealed
In March, @Telegraph ran an article headlined:
"Anyone questioning the govt's #COVID19 strategy is not only wrong, they're a danger to us all"
By creating a difficult media environment - boycotting & haranguing - some journalists stop digging too deeply.
Number one on the list of every populist govt is to shut down scrutiny & criticism
Questioning is “unpatriotic” or “divisive”
@jnpowell1 describes what is happening as a “the start of a rolling coup”👇
A right-wing coup, driven by science & technology? independent.co.uk/voices/boris-j…
Could someone please help out & turn this quote👆into one of those “quoety graphic” things like this👇
Thanks 💪
A message to @LindsayHoyle_MP
Holding the executive to account is not "divisive"
It is the PURPOSE of a parliamentary democracy
You're undoubtedly nice man & a man of principle
But your job as speaker - a role that dates back almost 800 years - is to ENSURE PROPER SCRUTINY.
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