Secrecy at all costs: Inside the Downing Street bunker preparing Britain’s lockdown exit. Longish read with @LOS_Fisher
Rishi, Gove, Hancock handed numbered paper copies of road map they couldn’t take with them amid heightened leak fears 1/ telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/…
Special advisers explicitly warned on recent Zoom calls with No 10 chief of staff Dan Rosenfield against Covid leaks, per multiple sources.
Some have taken a vow of silence fearing for their jobs if they discuss the road map. One: “I don’t want to be sacked”. 2/
Cabinet ministers being “kept in the dark” about the road map. So too many ministers whose briefs directly relate to countering Covid.
The heart of decision-making is ‘The Quad’ (PM, Rishi, Gove, Hancock) plus the scientists: Whitty, Vallance, sometimes JVT. 3/
Road map is being written by 100 Cabinet Office officials in the ‘Covid Taskforce’. Was 50+ pages on Monday before many edits.
Includes people crunching data on virus, vaccine, behavioural stuff, economics, plus... polling + focus groups via the Central Office of Information. 4/
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Skimmed Obama’s new memoir for British references yesterday. There are some standout ones.
Says Cameron had “the easy confidence of someone who’d never been pressed too hard by life”. 1/ telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/11/1…
Obama on Gordon Brown: He “lacked the sparkly political gifts of his predecessor” Tony Blair. 👀
But also calls him “thoughtful” and “responsible”. 2/
Obama recounts the media reaction to Michelle touching the Queen’s shoulder during the 2009 G20 summit in Britain. Says the Queen “didn’t seem to mind”. 3/
As far as I can tell Trump campaign fraud claims fall into 4 buckets: 1) people voting who shouldn’t have (eg dead) 2) election official wrongdoing (eg rules broken) 3) their poll watchers not getting full access 4) complaints about mail ballots arriving after election day
But...
Number 4 questionable - allowed for military ballots, other rules were agreed before the vote
Number 3 a side issue - not an example of fraudulent votes and disputed in many places.
Examples given for 1 + 2 are v limited. Being looked into. Some circulating online disproved.
Remember Trump isn’t just claiming a few voting irregularities. He’s alleging a conspiracy to steal the election from him.
The Trump campaign therefore needs to provide evidence for a) widespread and systematic vote fraud b) Trump being the target.
John Bolton:
"...All candidates are entitled to pursue appropriate election-law remedies if they have evidence supporting their claims. They should certainly not lie. The 1st Republican president was called 'Honest Abe' for a reason"
1/
Mitt Romney, Repub Utah senator, on Trump
"He is wrong to say the election was rigged, corrupt and stolen - doing so damages the cause of freedom here and around the world... and recklessly inflames destructive and dangerous passions."
2/
Pat Toomey, Repub Pennsylvania senator
“There’s simply no evidence anyone has shown me of any widespread corruption or fraud"
“The president’s speech last night was very disturbing to me because he made very, very serious allegations without any evidence to support it"
3/