I don’t say this lightly, but this extraordinary report by two independent government inspectorates into the way in which people were detained by the Home Office at Napier Barracks is a matter that calls for ministerial resignations. gov.uk/government/new…
“Fundamental failures of leadership and planning”.
This is what Patel said about it on 24 Feb to @CommonsHomeAffs.
Those answers suggest that Patel had looked into the issues. But it is, to put it mildly, hard to square those answers with the facts as set out by the inspectors.
Compare the inspectors’ report with Patel’s answer.
The correct answer would have been: “we had advice from PHE that we shouldn’t do this, but went ahead anyway.”
Instead, the answer was incoherent. In court, that would be described as “evasive”, at best.

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More from @GeorgePeretzQC

6 Mar
The self-subversive reference to the most famous surrealist painting of them all is a master touch. ImageImage
More seriously, note that the claim that the UK will be pushing for such a deal is plausible enough: it’s in our interests. But that is - rather significantly - not the same as a claim that such a deal is remotely likely.
Even more seriously, the “UK leading the world” rhetoric is symptomatic of a failure to think seriously about the role a medium size power like the UK can actually play. Think broker, promoter of good ideas.
Read 4 tweets
6 Mar
There are two constitutional issues raised by this story. ft.com/content/d485da….
The first constitutional issue is the possible abuse of power to shovel funding to areas represented by Ministers and other Tory MPs. The delay in publishing the methodology increases suspicion that the methodology will be tweaked to generate the desired results.
Are our systems of accountability strong enough to detect and call out what everyone accepts in principle must be wrong - a distortion of public spending to areas which the government of the day feels are more politically sensitive at the expense of areas with greater need?
Read 9 tweets
5 Mar
Key point here (and cf Swiss experience): “standing up to” the EU has a short run populist appeal (and EU behaviour fails to endear it to close neighbours). But in the medium run - when people see the price in economic damage and lost opportunities - it doesn’t work.
At the moment, the “pick a fight”, maximise “sovereignty” strategy appears price-free: the losses are all hidden beneath the Covid deluge (no one is travelling, effects on trade and jobs are - or are seen to be - swamped by Covid, press and public focus is elsewhere).
When the price of the current government’s choice of Brexit in lost opportunities, business, paperwork and sheer inconvenience emerges from the receding flood waters of Covid, things may well start looking very different.
Read 4 tweets
2 Mar
A few, tentative, thoughts on the legal advice disclosed by the Scottish Government on the Salmond case. gov.scot/publications/l…
NB I am not a Scots lawyer, and some of the procedural language is strange to me (though I can get the gist). But the issues of fairness, procedural error, apparent bias and duty of candour are all pretty familiar and as far as I can see much the same in Edinburgh as London.
This is the key chronology - which looks fair enough, having looked at the documents behind it. (It’s from the 29.12.18 document.)
Read 15 tweets
27 Feb
A good explanation of why the term “economic actor” in the subsidy provisions of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement is an abomination.
Nothing wrong, here, with “business”. (I guess “enterprise” was rejected because, pace George W Bush, it is the French word translated by the English “undertaking”.)
Read 4 tweets
27 Feb
Interesting passage in @katyballs’ piece about No 10’s plans to use the UK government’s new powers in the UK Internal Market Act.
The powers are here (section 50).
Money is power: if you give unfettered power to the UK government to spend effectively as it likes in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 and 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿, you affect those governments’ ability to determine priorities in areas within their competence.
Read 5 tweets

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