🧵Back in March 2020, the Government asked councils to house all street homeless people to protect them from the pandemic. It was an unprecedented move which rightly safeguarded thousands of vulnerable people from life on the streets as Covid took hold @LondonersLondon [1/4]
Paul Atherton @LondonersLondon was one of many who benefitted from the move. He went from sleeping rough in Heathrow to staying in a hotel apartment, where he could shower, cook healthy meals and rest when his Chronic Fatigue Syndrome flared up [2/4] thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2020-0…
But by July, he had been turfed out and was facing the prospect of sleeping rough once again. Now, over a year later, the ‘Everyone In’ scheme looks like a missed opportunity to eradicate rough sleeping for good [3/4]
Paul has now created a documentary with filmmaker @owainastles about his experience. ‘90 Days of Hope: Why Britain Chose Not To End Homelessness’ is premiering on 1 December @GenesisCinema to raise funds for @our_MoH.
What this note seems say is, if you have criticised Government policy, you can't be invited to speak to civil servants. In other words, only those who haven't criticised Government policy get invited. And this - which is inimical to neutrality - is presented as retaining it.
The memo isn't fully reported but it seems to say: if you criticise Government policy in area X, you are banned from speaking in area Y. So a black scientist who says (e.g.) 'Government is wrong to deny institutional racism exists' can't speak on her scientific expertise.
It's the conduct of a Government fearful of challenge, that responds to it by trying to silence the speaker rather than meeting the challenge, and that wields the power of State patronage to punish those who speak against the Government.
"The reports suggest a very serious misuse of public money, in the realms of criminal conduct, by or for the Prime Minister. We will not stand by and watch." glplive.org/no-more-threats
"Threatening to cut off funding for local communities to force MPs to vote to save a disgraced MP reveals the truth behind what the Government likes to style as ‘levelling up’. As always, it’s people from hard-up communities who end up paying the price." glplive.org/constituency-f…
Amusingly, the personal hostility in this piece (by @PaulGoodmanCH) renders more reliable his account of what happened when a gun was held to the heads of Tory backbenchers to force them to vote to exonerate sleaze. We'll certainly adduce it as evidence. conservativehome.com/leftwatch/2021…
Our so-called constitution offers no protection, none, against a removal of our human rights. And anyone who thinks this Government will stop at this is, I am afraid to say, a wild optimist or a fool. inews.co.uk/opinion/priti-…
Things will get very ugly. This Government abuses its power. It accepts no challenge. It has no morality. It has only self-interest. Buckle up.
Our @BarbzDavi reminds me of what the Greenham Common women achieved. Hard to imagine their protest would be permitted under this Government. bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0…
“The question every journalist should be asking Michael Gove now is: why did he or his office fast-track a firm run by a major Tory donor, who also donated to his Tory leadership bid, for a lucrative £160m Covid contract? This looks like really ugly stuff” mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…
This (probably deliberately) misses the point.
If a Minister refers a friend and you're a civil servant you're going to be heavily inclined to give that friend a contract because you'll know the friend will kick off to the Minister if you don't.
That's obviously true. But these emails show it happening. Civil servants were worried that Andrew Mills would kick off if they didn't give Ayanda a contract. Another has talked about it being "career impeding" to stand in a Minister's way.
"There was no good reason — but obvious bad reasons — for government to keep the public in the dark about these links... We now need some transparency about the equivalent VIP lane for Test and Trace contracts — on which £37bn of public money was spent." politico.eu/article/conser…
This is quite a quote from Lord Feldman.
Note, first, how it's carefully crafted to admit of the possibility he had non-commercial relationships with SG Recruitment, Skinnydip, Maxima and/or their owners.
Note, second, how there is no mention of those he does have commercial relationships with - Bunzl and Oxford Nanopore - and who won huge public contracts.
The Establishment is not evil - so why is it getting things so badly wrong on trans issues? At the heart of it is this. Unless you are from or alongside a marginalised community it is hard to imagine how others experience the Establishment.
If you are inside the Establishment your experience is that it behaves in ways that are fair, reasonable and which give proper weight and protection to your interests. Outside the Establishment things are... different.
If you have never lived in or alongside a properly marginalised community you really need to try hard to listen. Until you really 'get' that your experience is not universal you are likely - however good your intentions - to be a force that perpetuates unfairness and inequality.