The Mone affect

The bulk of this post is a transcript of Laura Kuenssberg's interview with Doug Barrowman and Michelle Mone, broadcast on 17 December 2023, about the supply of PPE to the government's desperate attempt to tackle Covid-19. The BBC showed a short edit of the conversation on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg (starting at around 7:25) and published a longer edit on their website.

The shorter edit is shown in red, with the rest of the longer edit in blue and my comments, indented, in purple.

The PPE Medpro case has been "debated" online as if it's the only example of a questionable government contract during the Covid period, and Barrowman has being pretty much ignored because he doesn't look good in a swimsuit.

Even after this interview very few of the PPE contracts (of which there were over a hundred) and none of the thousands of other contracts awarded without proper tendering have come up.

Mone protests that the government is treating Barrowman and her as scapegoats. Sunak's stock answer is "The government takes these things incredibly seriously, which is why we’re pursuing legal action against the company concerned... That’s how seriously I take it and the government takes it... But it is also subject to an ongoing criminal investigation, and because of that, there’s not much further that I can add."

The last thing government wants to do is talk openly about the number of contracts they're chasing up. Or the number they've given up on because they're too hard. Or face public questions about money handed to cronies.

Dramatis personae

DB: Doug Bannerman

LK: Laura Kuenssberg

MM: Michelle Mone

The interview

LK: Baroness Mone, Doug Barrowman, let's go back in time to that terrible spring of 2020. You thought you could supply PPE - masks, gowns, equipment that was desperately needed for the government.

DB: Well, like everyone else we were in lockdown, in the Isle of Man, and Michelle and I watched the terrible scenes unfurl on television, and the clear shortage that there was in PPE. We looked at each other and we thought we can make a difference. We had strong contacts, and...

LK: A big business opportunity there as well.

DB: Yes, that wasn't the primary motivation. We wanted to do our bit. And, you know, like any supplier in any contract to government, you know, yes, there will be an element of profit, but the primary motivation was to help.

LK: What did you do then Michelle?

MM There was a call to arms for all Lords, baronesses, MPs, senior civil servants to help, because they needed massive quantities of PPE. Given the fact that I've got 25 years manufacturing experience, and that's one of the reasons why I was put into the House of Lords. I'm a brand expert etc etc. I looked at Doug and I thought, we can really, really help here. And I just know all the key players in the far east, and I made the call to Michael Gove.

LK: And what did you say to him?

MM: I just said to him - well he knows that I'm a manufacturing experience - and I just said "We can help", and "we want to help" and he was like "Oh my goodness, this is amazing".

DB: So we entered into discussions, PPE Medpro, myself - I led the consortium - of two other partners, a company based in Hong Kong, Bain & co, and a company based in the UK, Loudwater Trade and Finance...

LK: So to be really clear, PPE Medpro didn't exist before the pandemic.

DB: No. You've got three partners, they needed a vehicle to trade, and at the end of the day we weren't going to trade a company out of Hong Kong, and the British government would have preferred to always trade with a UK company. So we created PPE Medpro as a UK business so that the three partners could provide PPE to the British government.

LK: But you had a kind of VIP access, you had a cabinet minister on speed dial, you could phone up and say, "I think I can make this happen, can you put me in touch with the right people?"

MM: Yeah, well, that's what we were asked to do. But what I think the public think is that - you know - we were trying to keep it a secret**, that I was involved. Everyone in DHSC, NHS, the Cabinet Office, the government, knew of my involvement. And they asked us to both declare our interests.

** The public might think you were trying to keep it a secret because "everyone in DHSC, NHS, the Cabinet Office, the government" is not the public. As Kuenssberg tortuously demonstrates later.

LK: When you say that though, you told the government, the government was aware. Did you tell the house of Lords authorities?

MM: OK, so basically I discussed it with the Cabinet Office, and you do not declare your interest in the House of Lords if you are not a director, you're not a shareholder, you're not financially benefitting, and I discussed that with the Cabinet Office, and they said, "We just need you to put it in writing and declare your interest, with us..." That's all.

DB: I... as well.

LK But the House of Lords rules say that members have a clear duty to provide information which might reasonably be thought by others to influence their actions. Because there's a question of perception here too, and in fact the rules also say that sometimes registration of a spouse or a partner's interests is also required

MM: Right, well again Laura, I was only doing what I was asked to do. And, as far as I was aware, if you're not a director, not a shareholder, not financially benefitting then that's exactly what I did. If I was told by the Cabinet Office "No, you actually need to do this", I would have done it straight away.

DB: I'm a business guy, so I think like an entrepreneur. I don't know the parliamentary rulebook. Cabinet Office clearly felt there was a perceived conflict**, because you have an unusual situation of a husband and wife team being together. I'm the entrepreneur, I'm leading the consortium, I'm fronting the consortium, she's doing her level best to make sure the government get what they want, and obviously she was a conduit, a liaison with the consortium. I live with the woman, I'm married to the woman. It's an unusual situation. They must have been satisfied in the end to have awarded the contract, contracts. If they were not satisfied, they should never have awarded us a contract. They should have said "There's a perceived contract her, conflict here."

** I'm still not sure Barrowman really meant to say "Cabinet Office clearly felt there was a perceived conflict" because it demolishes the argument for not registering it in the Lords.

MM: I was only doing as I was told, and the Cabinet Office asked me to do that. And we had no hesitation to give, to declare our interest, and we did that straight away. And, you know, the reason why I was helping out is that I was just shocked, you know, the pandemic and running out

LK: But what's also clear is the Parliamentary rules are clear, that members of the House of Lords, or members of the House of Commons, if they have a financial interest, or a perceived conflict of interest, which you mentioned Doug, the responsibility is on them - it was on you to tell Parliament. Do you wish you had?

MM: If I knew I had to... the Cabinet Office advised me only to do this. You know, you listen to the Cabinet Office. They're in contact with all the ministers, they're in contact with the House of Lords, they're in contact with everyone. The Cabinet Office, and I was doing exactly as they asked me to do.

LK: By your own admission though, and for the reasons you've set out - you say you wanted to help, you used your contact with government ministers to help broker a commercial deal for a company that was to bring tens and tens of millions of pounds of profit for your husband, for your family, and you didn't tell the authorities in Parliament. To a lot of our viewers watching, that might sound like you were trading on your title and not following the rules, not declaring it all...

MM: No, absolutely not, and I was just acting the same way as every other baroness, Lord, who also put names forward - there was lots of us.

LK: What did you agree to provide? And how much was the contract for Doug?

DB: OK. So the first contract was to supply 210 million Type 2R masks which, the average price that was being paid at that time was 51p per mask, and our masks were 38½p. That was an extremely competitive price. Those goods were delivered on time, to specification and at the competitive price I just intimated. They were also used and fully deployed in the NHS, so there was no issue whatsoever with that contract. Off the back of the credentials that had been established with the DHSC we successfully won a second contract** to supply 25 million sterile surgical gowns.

** It only comes up much later that there was a problem with the second contract, and Kuenssberg doesn't tell us that's why she's asking questions about "something's gone wrong".

LK And how much were you paid, and how much of it was profit?

DB: The two contracts in total came to a value of £202 million, and Medpro made a return on its investment of about - realistically - about 30%.

LK: So about £60 million.

DB: Yeah, yeah, about that, yeah. That's right, or so...

LK: To a lot of people watching, making a profit of £60 million during a national emergency like a pandemic sounds not just like an enormous amount of cash, but also a bit like profiteering.

DB: Well, PPE prices during the pandemic went up five times, and a lot of our competitors were charging as I said before, on the gowns front between 7 and 12 pounds a gown. At the very start of the pandemic the government paid actually numbers way in excess of that. We cut out most of the middle people, and we dealt direct with the manufacturer.

LK:  So you say you saved the government a lot of money, but you also made a lot of money. And there's nothing wrong with making money... But that is what happened, right?

DB: We made a good return for the risk involved, and the risk was considerable. We had to fund all the working capital. To fund these contracts with manufacturers you have to pay 50% up front, so on 202 million of contracts that's a lot of money. The government did not give us any deposits up front, and at one stage in the contract they owed us £74 million, and I can assure you, we were sweating. Because the government held all the cards with the contracts. Until they were happy with the outcomes, and the products that we had supplied, there was no guarantee we would get paid, so the risks were absolutely extraordinary.

LK: But when it became public that you were connected to the company, you both denied it. Why?

MM: I wasn't trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes, and I regret and I'm sorry for not saying straight out "Yes I am involved" because DHSC, the NHS, the Cabinet Office, they all knew of my involvement. But I didn't want the press intrusion for my family. My family have gone through hell with the media over, you know, my career. And I didn't want another big hoo-hah in the press and my family to be involved in it.

LK: It was more than an error though. Your lawyers repeatedly told journalists who wanted to report the truth that you were not connected. Lawyers for you Doug said repeatedly you had no role or function in PPE Medpro. You've been telling us today how hard you worked to get the contracts and to make the contracts happen. Over a period of months, you said again and again that you had no connection and your lawyers even said to some journalists it would be defamatory, they'd be libelling you if they told the truth. You know, this just wasn't a slip-up...

MM: Yeah

LK: You didn't tell the truth for months on end...

MM: I think if we were to say of anything that we have done - we've done a lot of good - but if we were to say anything that we have done, that we are sorry for, and... that's not, that's... we should have told the press straight up, straight away. Nothing to hide. Everyone knew of an involvement, and we should have said to them of our involvement. And we were just trying to not have all the front covers of the pages again. For my family, and I was just protecting my family. And again, I'm sorry for that, but I wasn't trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes. No-one.

LK: But that's exactly what you were trying to do. You had lawyers working for both of you, telling people, telling the public, that you had nothing to do with the company.

MM: Yeah

LK: And saying it would have been a libel to suggest that you were.

MM: But the NHS, the DHSC, the Cabinet Office. You know I wish that they would have probably come out and said, we know of their involvement. That would have helped. But yeah, it's something that we regret doing, and we listened to our advisers.

LK: What happened then, to the money, the profit you've alluded to, around about £61 million?

DB: So, I led the consortium. At the end of the day I'm an Isle of Man resident. The money comes to the Isle of Man, 'cause that's fundamentally where I live. It goes on my tax return, and like all my sources of income that I've generated over many years, it goes into trust for the benefit of my family.

LK: Was any of it used to buy a yacht?

DB: No. No.

MM: Used to buy a what, sorry?

LK: A yacht.

MM: A yacht? It's not my yacht. It's not my money. I don't have that money, and my kids don't have that money. And my children, my family, have been through so much pain because of the media, they have not got £29 million.

** The sum of £29 million has been mentioned in media reports as Mone's share of the profits, but here it comes out of the blue with no explanation from her or Kuenssberg.

LK: And this money from PPE Medpro as I understand it went into two trusts.

DB: Yes.

LK: Now one of those trusts**, called Keristal...

** At no point does Kuenssberg ask about the second trust - the other half of the profits.

DB: Yes

LK: The beneficiaries of that trust, where half of the profit went, are you [MM] and your children...

MM: And Doug's children

DB: And my children. For the benefit of all my family.

MM: I'm his wife, so I'm a beneficiary. As well as his children, as well as my children. And you know, in my will, if I die one day, my husband's in my will, my kids are in my will, so, you know, that's what couples do.

LK: You've said repeatedly you didn't financially benefit from this deal. Except, it's just a matter of time before you benefit. The trust is in your and your children's name. That is a financial...

MM: No, no...

DB: That's not true

LK: Not right now. This is exactly what I'm trying to clarify.

DB: Let's clarify. The trust is settled in my name. It's my income, it's taxed on my tax return, and I choose to put it in trust for the benefit of not just Michelle's kids but my own kids as well. Ultimately one day, because I'm not going to be on the planet for ever, someone's going to benefit from a lifetime in business and experience. Ultimately, if I'm married to Michelle, and ultimately I want to generate profit, and ultimately Michelle in some shape or form is going to indirectly benefit. And actually, if I die, one day in the future, she's going to directly benefit.

LK: As you've just said Doug, your family is benefitting - you [MM] will benefit - as a family you are benefitting from those tens of millions of pounds. Whether it's today, or in ten years or twenty years or thirty years... for most people watching this you did a deal with the government to provide more than £200 million pounds worth of PPE and your family has made tens of millions of pounds...

MM: No, not my family hasn't, Laura, made tens of millions of pounds. God forbid, if my husband decides to divorce me after this show [laughter] and takes me out of his letter of wishes, I take my husband out of my will if we - God forbid - get divorced... I don't benefit. It's my husband's money. It's his money. It's not my money, and it's not my children's money.

DB: Michelle has no access to that money, and Michelle has no discretion over that money. Unless I wanted to give everything away to strangers, or the charity or whatever, she was always going to benefit, and my family will benefit in due course. Her family benefit, my family benefit. That's what you do when you're in the privileged position of making money.

LK: Why not then just say, "Yes, I stand to benefit one day"? Rather than what you have chosen to do, which is repeatedly say "I'm not benefitting financially". You will one day. We're not talking here about someone getting a Christmas bonus and saying I'm not going to give it to my wife now, I'm going to put it in the bank and surprise her later on with a lovely family holiday or I'm going to hold that money back, because maybe one day we might be able to save the deposit for a kid's flat further down the line.

DB: Yeah, sure

LK: You've both admitted today that you will in time benefit financially from that cash. Your family as a unit will benefit from that cash. Why didn't you just be more straightforward about it?

MM: I am being straightforward about it now Laura. I'm saying to you that I didn't receive that cash. That cash is not my cash. That cash is my husband's cash.

** "I am being honest now" is not a satisfactory answer to "Why have you been dishonest until  now?" but Mone keeps pleading right to the end.

 

LK: But do you admit...

MM: We are... It's just like my Mum... my Dad came home with his wage - you know - packet on a Friday night and given it to my Mum, so she's - you know - benefitting from that as well. But that cash is not my cash, it's not my children's cash. As the press and the attacks keep going on. And that's the problem.

LK: But do you admit that one day that money will come to you or your children?

MM: Maybe not. Maybe not. I just said it to you. Maybe not if God forbid if we get divorced after this show...

LK: But just to be crystal clear, because this is at the heart of it, and I know you want to get the facts out there, we want to be completely crystal clear. Do you admit today that with the way that you've currently got your finances set up, that one day you and your children will benefit from that money, because you right now are listed as the beneficiaries of that trust?

MM: If one day, if - God forbid - my husband passes away before me, then I'm a beneficiary as well as his children and my children. So, yes, of course

LK: How would you describe the government's overall handling of trying to get PPE during that crisis from what you saw?

MM: You know it's easy to criticise now. We were in a global pandemic. Everybody was panicking. It's appalling that over £9.1 billion was over-ordered. Five years of stock of PPE when it only has a shelf life of two years. And all I will say right now is "Why are we not holding them to account?" - the DHSC - why is there no management system, stock system, integration system? If you're running a proper business - a department store, a brand - you know your stocks, you know what's on the boat coming in, you know what's on the shop floor, you know what's in your warehouse. Why do they not know where everything is? Lying in fields all over the country, a complete and utter waste of taxpayers' money. And the reason why Doug and I, my husband and I, are sitting here is because we've been a scapegoat - goats -  and they have destroyed our lives for over two years because it suited them, the narrative suits them, to attack us the way they have done and at the end of the day the masks were delivered, they were high quality masks, at the best prices; the gowns were delivered, there was no issue with the gowns** - they passed them, they paid for them, they congratulated them on the quality as well...

** Even at this stage there's no hint of a problem with the second contract.

DB: I think they wanted to hold us out as the Bonnie and Clyde of PPE. It suited the narrative. They have had a one-way ticket to push that narrative because we have not fought back in two years.

LK: But you feel like your lives have been ruined the last couple of years.

MM: Yeah, of course they have. Of course they have. I mean... and the pain that's caused in our family and over - you know I think the attacks, they go up all the time, over 700 threats, you know, I'm going to throw acid over you, I'm going to burn your house down... The hatred... we've been absolutely vilified, and you know, we've only just, we've done a... one thing, which was lie to the press to say we weren't involved. No-one deserves this.

LK: So, Doug, lets then take you to a time when - as far as you're concerned, contracts have happened, deliveries have taken place, the Department of Health then gets in touch, says something's gone wrong, they try to claw back money... Tell us what then happens.

DB: OK, well obviously the gowns were delivered August 2020. Actually in October 2020 we actually had an enquiry from the government for another 2 million gowns. This time they asked us to double bag them, because they hadn't specified their preference, which was to double bag gowns as opposed to single bag. In fact 24 other UK suppliers all produced single bag gowns as well, and all had their gowns rejected as well. So we have a situation where we had a number of mediations because our view is, we supplied everything on time, to specification and at competitive prices. Any problems in contract specification were your fault, and it's very very clear that, you know, they're interested in settling**, but they want a sum of money that quite honestly we are not of a mind to pay. So I then have a separate meeting and this individual asks me, would I pay more for the other matter to go away? I was speechless. I didn't quite understand what he meant by that. The only other matter on the table was the NCA investigation, which had commenced, as far as we were aware, in April 2022. I was absolutely gobsmacked. I think it raises very serious questions as to what that official meant, what he was saying. I'm clear in my mind what he was saying. He was asking me if I would pay more money for the NCA investigation to be called off.

** Barrowman's "they're interested in settling" suggests the government is trying to "claw back money", but his explanation is so clumsy that the accusation against the "official" isn't as effective as it will need to be in court.

LK: So you're clear in your mind that a senior government official suggested that you hand over a lot of money to make a criminal investigation go away.

DB: The phrase "will you pay more for the other matter to go away" I think it leaves it in very little doubt that, was I holding back any money on the civil case when in fact I'd pay more for the other matter to go away as well

LK: That's an extraordinarily serious allegation to make. If that's what you believed was happening why didn't you go to the police at that point. If you believed a senior government official was trying to bribe** you to make a criminal investigation go away, why didn't you report it to the police then?

** Laura Kuenssberg doesn't know what "bribe" means. This is an allegation of something like extortion, certainly misuse of power.

DB: I take the advice of my legal team, and the legal team at that point in time suggested that we park that one for now**.

** Another time, I'd wonder what that says about his general regard for the law.

LK: What's the worst moment been for you?

MM: Everything... You know I'm such a strong, a strong woman, but it's relentless. As I said, it's over 800 days in the media, every day. It's the attacks, it's the threats, it's the social media, the kangaroo court, the... You know, they all think we're guilty. Guilty for what?

LK: Just a factual question** to you Doug. Are you a person of significant control in PPE Medpro?

DB: Oh, that's a tough question Laura. What I am is somebody who is a beneficiary of the trust that owns - owned - PPE Medpro. So what that means is I suppose I'm the ultimate beneficial owner - a UBO. That's a technical question you'd have to ask my accountants and family people - family office people.

LK: You've told us very candidly today that you led the consortium, you did the deal, and yet when you look up at Companies House, which is where everything's meant to be registered in a normal way, you're nowhere to be seen.     

DB: In terms of my appointments they're all handled by the people in my family office. That's normal practice, and has been that way for ever.

** This "factual question" and Barrowman's family office and its relationship to Companies House has been put under the microscope by the tax specialist Dan Neidle.

LK: I think some of our viewers, though, might feel there's a bit of a pattern. At the beginning of this, the rules of the Lords say that your interests should be declared. You didn't - you say the Cabinet Office told you not to. When it first emerged that you were behind PPE Medpro you didn't tell the truth about that. Doug, you led this consortium, you've made tens of millions of pounds out of it for your family, but your name's nowhere to be found on Companies House when it comes to the business. And Michelle, you've said repeatedly you didn't benefit financially, except you've also admitted today that in time your families may well benefit from huge amounts of money. Do you think some of our viewers might listen to this and just think there's a pattern here of time and again trying to hide what really happened.

DB: Look Laura. At the end of the day I can speak for myself here and that is I'm a private person. I'm a private person. There's a reason why I live in the Isle of Man. I'm not here today to defend my record on why I am a private person and don't want anyone in the press to know of any business activity or anything I get engaged in.

LK: But Michelle, it does feel like the truth has had to be dragged out here

MM: Not really Laura, because the only thing I'd say to you is the only error that I have made is say to the press that I wasn't involved. As I said, DHSC, the NHS, the emergency Cabinet Office, they knew of all my involvement. They were calling me constantly. I was calling them. They were sending me emails constantly, over 1400 emails.

LK: But you repeatedly didn't tell the truth, your lawyers told journalists who were trying to report the truth that they would be libelling you if they told the truth. It sounds like whether it's the money, whether it's your involvement, whether it's whether you had to tell parliament, it's a smokescreen.

MM: But that's why we're here today doing an interview after two years.

LK: Do you see why the people listening might feel that?

MM: But that's why we're explaining to people

LK: What do you hope that 2024 will bring for you, legally, for your reputations and for you personally?

MM: I don't honestly see that there's a case to answer. I can't see what we've done wrong. Doug and the consortium have simply delivered a contract, a delivery, contract of goods...

LK: But after everything, you can't see what you've done wrong, when you've admitted today that you lied to the press... and by extension you lied to the public

MM That's not a crime... Laura, saying to the press that I'm not involved, to protect my family, can I just make this clear, it's not a crime. The press have got nothing to do with my family. I was protecting my family. And I think people will realize that in the press attacks that I have gone through since I walked into the House of Lords. I was a very successful individual, businesswoman, and since I walked into the House of Lords it's been a nightmare for my family. So, that's not a crime to say to the press, to tell the press what I did. That's not a crime.

LK: Doug Barrowman, Michelle Mone, thank you very much.

Be prepared - Covid inquiry week 5

As I write, Boris Johnson still hasn't delivered the Whatsapp messages from his old phone, covering more than half the period identified as important to the Covid inquiry. It's now nine days since the Cabinet Office lost its court case and told us it was perfectly happy with that result: "[O]ur judicial review application was valid as it raised issues over the application of the Inquiries Act 2005 that have now been clarified. The court’s judgment is a sensible resolution and will mean that the inquiry chair is able to see the information she may deem relevant, but we can work together to have an arrangement that respects the privacy of individuals and ensures completely irrelevant information is returned and not retained".

Which is what most of us probably thought the law was all along. Baroness Hallett, the inquiry chair, simply said "You have until Monday". Which came and went. The Cabinet Office told us they'd handed everything over, but this wasn't true. The old, suspect phone was still in Johnson's hands and still unopened, despite his declared readiness to see every one of his Whatsapps in Hallett's hands, despite his supposed consultation with security specialists for help with safe access to the device, and despite the passing of six weeks.

Enough time for him to copy all the messages out longhand.

Instead, he decided he'd forgotten the PIN. As ever, he was delighted to help, but put off the inconvenient moment as long as he could get away with. And more. Maybe next Monday. . .

A historian of bugs and drugs

Week 5 of the inquiry was dominated by evidence on pandemic preparedness in Northern Ireland and local authorities, and began with a historical tour d'horizon of public health around the UK by Dr Claas Kirchhelle, self-styled "historian of bugs and drugs".

The inquiry had asked him to look at "the history of public health bodies in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland... key Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response functions and structures... including public health laboratories... and the impact of the changes of public health structures on... the cohesion of the public health system, information sharing, the workforce, and on pandemic preparedness and resilience".

In exchanges with the inquiry's counsel Kate Blackwell (which I've mashed together to produce some kind of narrative), Kirchhelle took us through "1939 to 2002... the post-war evolution of United Kingdom public health arrangements and infrastructures prior to the major health security oriented regulatory reconfigurations that took place following the 1990s BSE crisis and also the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center", then "2002 to 2010... 'Centralisation and Fragmentation'... new integrated health protection bodies at the level of the UK and also the devolved nations, local health services and evolving pandemic preparedness amidst the 2003 and 2009 outbreaks of SARS CoV-1 and swine flu" and "2010 to 2019... 'Austerity and Localism'... new doctrines of localism amidst austerity-related cuts to local public health budgets and the influence of new molecular technologies on laboratory infrastructures".

It's a story of re-organisations, restructurings and devolution, with new market structures in health spreading to public health laboratories: "From the 1990s onwards, the Public Health Laboratory Service had sole management of the laboratories and charged health authorities and GPs for diagnostic tests [with] formalised charging arrangement[s] significantly complicat[ing] the very effective yet quite informal arrangements of the post-war period".

Then "the 'painful birth' [of the Health Protection Agency, in 2003] is a quote... from the first executive of the HPA... following the 9/11 attacks, but also following a request by the UK's government, the then UK [Chief Medical Officer] Liam Donaldson reconceptualised health protection in a very American CDC-led style, where you would integrate and combine responsibilities for infection control, radioactive and chemical hazard control, into one big agency that could, in a kind of command and control system, gather the intelligence and swoop in... should there be problems at the local level".

The Health Protection Agency received "£116 million of funding from the Department of Health... in... its first year in existence, then that rose to £193 million... following the 2009 swine flu outbreak, and then went back down to £142 million in the 2012/2013 budgetary year. That differing rise and fall was also mirrored in staffing levels... a classic example of yo-yo funding for public health in and outside crises... once the immediate perception of a crisis has passed, funding tends to go down".

And finally to "the period of time that this Inquiry is concerned with, and it's really 2009 or 2010 up to the time that Covid hit... in 2012, in England, we saw the most complex political restructuring of health and public health services that had happened in decades, or perhaps ever. The primary care trusts were abolished and public health competencies were transferred back to local authorities, as had been the case before [the PCTs'] creation... the HPA was replaced by what is described as a super-organisation, in the form of Public Health England... the rationale [was] to integrate health protection and health improvement functions... similar reforms in the devolved administrations... health improvement during this time is becoming very big in international health, and the UK is in line with the trends there".

 

This tale of reshaping and upending is far too long to reproduce here. You can watch the evidence session (first two and a half hours), read the transcript, or take a look at Dr Kirchhelle's report.

Local authorities - poor relations?

Don't bother trying to make sense of this.

"Councils were expected to lead a response in their community to a whole range of issues. We were learning of the issues and the expected response in the afternoon press conferences in the same way as the rest of the nation."

This is a picture of the Covid period itself rather than the preparatory years this module of the inquiry is supposed to be concerned with, but it illustrates the story told during a three-hander on Wednesday 12 July (day 19 transcript - search for Mark Lloyd - or video - from 1 hour 26 minutes; again my narrative puts together lines from Blackwell and her witness). The words are from Mark Lloyd, Chief Executive of the Local Government Association, who was supported by Chris Llewellyn and Alison Allen of the Welsh and Northern Ireland LGAs, and the fact that Lloyd's words present most of the narrative seems to illustrate our less than perfect devolution.

"[G]overnment has increasingly looked to local resilience forums" (one of the many elements of UK pandemic preparedness which are not so much illustrated in as splattered across the organogram above) "to respond to a range of issues that one wouldn't naturally describe as an emergency," suggested Mr Lloyd. "So EU exit, for example, the death of the monarch, for example. So we need to be clear about what they're for."

Lloyd continued with examples from Covid, preparation for no-deal Brexit, and more generally: "Councils were expected to lead a response in their community to a whole range of issues. We were learning of the issues and the expected response in the afternoon press conferences in the same way as the rest of the nation... When it came to port authorities trying to access information about the likely impact on their transport infrastructure of a no-deal exit from the EU, we could not access, without extreme pressure, data from the relevant government agency."

"... We have some parts of the country where the coterminosity between a local resilience for[um], police force area and local authorities is tidy. There are parts of the country where that is not the case... Historically... the funding of the local resilience fora fell to the local partners. That changed during EU exit preparation when some resources came in. During the [decade before Covid] local authorities were subject to significant financial pressures... the resources that councils were able to invest in local resilience fora decreased by some 35%."

"... local government is all about the well-being of its place, including public health, and by bringing the public health function firmly back into local governments, it ensured that in everything we do around tackling homelessness, the work we do around employment and jobs, the things that we do to support anybody that has any kind of vulnerability, we started to view that through the public health lens. So not only did we move the relatively small public health teams in, we turned councils in their entirety into public health organisations. That's a great big win."

How much the local structures are really included in national preparation for a pandemic is a concern. Apart from a few local fora which actually took part, the pandemic flu exercise Cygnus was "kept secret from local government" and its conclusions and recommendations were not published until the preparation of this inquiry, which "is particularly concerning... given that... one of the overarching findings of the report was that the United Kingdom was not equipped for a pandemic... [A]t the moment it's seen as a top-down approach to these kinds of events and local government is brought in as a participant on a small scale rather than at the core of the exercise".

Similarly exercise Alice, which attempted to simulate a coronavirus outbreak. The Local Government Association "did not become aware of Exercise Alice taking place until the autumn of last year, 2022... Alice was a desktop exercise exploring the consequence of the UK experiencing a SARS, MERS outbreak. The local government family, I think that applies to the whole of the nation, didn't become aware of the exercise having taken place, nor its conclusions, until the report became known through the work of this Inquiry... it was the first time when issues like quarantine featured in planning. It would have changed what we were doing in our local planning to have knowledge of that kind of intent".

"... the local-national interface... is a shared endeavour to manage the nation through events, like the tragic event of a pandemic. If we're not sighted on the recommendations like the 22 set out in Exercise Cygnus, like recommendation 21 around excess death management and the consequences for us at a local level, we're not planning in the way that we should be."

Lady Hallett intervened: "Does that mean that no local bodies were involved in Exercise Alice?" and Lloyd repeated, "... in Cygnus there was the engagement of eight local resilience fora. To the best of my knowledge there was no local government involvement in... Exercise Alice". Hallett mused, "So no input and then you're not even told what the recommendations are?"

They can't stop saying "Brexit"

On day 1 Hugo Keith KC - Lead Counsel to the Inquiry - set the scene for the first module, based on evidence gathered, procured and commissioned over the last year. The Telegraph didn't like his winding up.

"Lastly, the pandemic struck the United Kingdom just as it was leaving the European Union. That departure required an enormous amount of planning and preparation, particularly to address what were likely to be the severe consequences of a no-deal exit on food and medicine supplies, travel and transport, business, borders and so on. It is clear that such planning, from 2018 onwards, crowded out and prevented some or perhaps a majority of the improvements that central government itself understood were required to be made to resilience planning and preparedness.

"Did the attention therefore paid to the risks of a no-deal exit, Operation Yellowhammer as it was known, drain the resources and capacity that should have been continuing the fight against the next pandemic, that should have been utilised in preparing the United Kingdom for civil emergency? Or did all that generic and operational planning in fact lead to people being better trained and well marshalled and, in fact, better prepared to deal with Covid, and also to the existence of improved trade medicine and supply links? My Lady, on the evidence so far, but it will be a matter for you, we very much fear that it was the former."

The Telegraph complained of "allegations of bias" (paywalled story, later reproduced), which it had invited. "Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former Brexit Opportunities minister, said: 'The die-hard Remainers think everything is caused by Brexit, which is delusional. Unfortunately, this foolish comment starts the inquiry off on the wrong foot. It ought to stick to relevant facts, not self-indulgent speculations'.”

Several witnesses I've heard have indeed given evidence that transferring people and resources into preparation for no deal (or indeed for Brexit generally, as Gove said this Thursday: "There was a widespread feeling [shortly after Boris Johnson became Prime Minister], and one that I shared, that there had been insufficient focus and urgency in our preparation for EU exit overall, and specifically for a no-deal exit.") meant that, for example, some of the recommendations from Exercise Cygnus could not be pursued. Are these not relevant facts?

Matthew Hancock (day 10) pushed back by observing that the work done on no-deal preparation left his department with a knowledge of medicine supply chains which turned out to be very useful in 2020. Michael Gove (day 20) pushed back more generally, arguing that Operation Yellowhammer gave government much deeper understanding of other supply chains and processes, but finally admitted under questioning from counsel for Covid-19 Bereaved Families For Justice that such understanding didn't extend to everything - PPE, for example.

On Wednesday (day 19) Mark Lloyd - Chief Executive of the Local Government Association , quoted above - restated and answered Keith's initial question. "[T]here's a plus and a minus on this. So the plus, the work on no-deal Brexit preparation actually brought partners together and meant that we were working on issues that provided a helpful starting point for the very, very significant challenges that then came our way. On the negative side, the consequence of that focus so rigorously on no-deal preparation did mean that routine activity, the reviewing of plans, the testing and training, work on pan flu, et cetera, was deferred.

"There is a definite consequence. Local government... is very dynamic and we will move resources around to the issue that's presenting to our community, but we in the main have to do it with the resources that we've got. You've had previous witnesses that talked about the increase in capacity in central government to deal with Yellowhammer. Local government didn't increase its capacity, we had to move staff around. The consequence of moving staff around was some things had to go. Add to that my previous reference to the impact of financial cuts in councils, typically emergency planning staff halved during that decade, so there was less capacity anyway going into no-deal planning."

Nobody who's read my posts in any forum will doubt that I consider leaving the EU to have been the wrong thing to do, but it's daft to suggest that everything bad in today's UK is the fault of Brexit. Just as Rees-Mogg's claim that any negative comment about Brexit (in fact it concerned preparation for the kind of Brexit his government was officially trying to avoid) somehow shows Keith up as a "die-hard Remainer" is a petulant error of logic.

It was the last point in a long, detailed scene setting, perhaps, but the lawyer's passage quoted above is 199 words from a presentation of some 9,275. Were the other 9,000 words not worthy of comment (you'd think a discussion of health inequalities, and whether health and care funding was adequate, might exercise a Conservative newspaper and a former Conservative cabinet minister) or did they not notice the rest as their Brexit klaxon sounded?

Letter to my MP - Policy on outside speakers in government departments

Bringing people in from other sectors and organisations to share their experience and different viewpoints with your staff can add value to a workplace - I remember a day with people from Cranfield University and a talk from the Information Commmissioner of the day - and I would expect the civil service above all to benefit from such a broadening of outlook.

I am disturbed, therefore, to read that outside speakers are being vetted before they can be let loose in a government department. Not for membership of terrorist organisations, but for having criticised current policy on social media. The narrowness and timidity of such an approach, not least from a government which professes to support freedom of speech and calls out cancel culture in other places, shows a weakness of corporate mind.

Edward Lucas of the Centre for European Policy and Analysis raised the alarm this week in the Times - https://t.co/VO8QR0zKY1 - but I was aware of the policy last August - https://t.co/lpjzKYogBI . I know the names of two people who have been barred from speaking to civil servants, one from the media, and one by personal contact, and all I can say is that cancelling them is the government's loss, and therefore a disadvantage to all of us.

Would you please convey my disgust at this policy to your colleagues in the Cabinet Office, and suggest that a government which is too timid to allow civil servants to hear from somebody who is "not a fan" of this policy or that does not inspire confidence.

Letter to my MP - Minimum service levels

I see that a bill is likely to be introduced on your return to the Commons to impose minimum service levels at least for certain "blue light" workers. I have seen Grant Shapps telling an interviewer that it would be unreasonable if somebody had a stroke and no ambulance turned up because there was a strike.

I have also heard several stories over the last few days of people waiting 20 or 30 hours for an ambulance. What if somebody had a stroke and no ambulance turned up, not because there was a strike, but because they were queueing up for hours outside an A&E ward waiting to transfer patients for triage?

Can hospitals - can the government - guarantee minimum service levels on a non-strike day?

The Johnson method

Direct quotes, with links to Hansard, and discussion

November 2021

[Reports of Downing St parties]

01 December 2021

Johnson: all guidance was followed completely in No. 10

Was this the one time he misled the Commons inadvertently? Did he not ask? Were his media people really so inept as to ignore the danger signals? Did the defensive sentence come naturally?

07 December 2021

[Video of press conference rehearsal with jokes about “a party”]

08 December 2021

Johnson: I apologise unreservedly for the offence that it has caused up and down the country, and I apologise for the impression that it gives.

I don't apologise for the briefing, and I certainly don't volunteer anything about it being normal practice. I don't apologise for the party referred to, so I don't acknowledge that a party did happen.

I repeat that I have been repeatedly assured since these allegations emerged that there was no party and that no COVID rules were broken. That is what I have been repeatedly assured.

I won't tell you who assured me, I won't tell you myself that there was no party and no rule breaking, and I won't tell you I've spoken to Allegra Stratton, Ed Oldfield or anybody else at the rehearsal to resolve the conflict between what I'm telling you and what you saw for yourselves in the video. I might well have spoken to all of them, but I don't need to tell you that.

But I have asked the Cabinet Secretary to establish all the facts and to report back as soon as possible.

As soon as possible is not now, and I've done all the apologising I need to.

Minimise, Prevaricate, Postpone

And note, I have not corrected the record. Last week I told you that "all guidance was followed completely in No. 10", but I haven't acknowledged that I was wrong, because I haven't acknowledged that I've asked whether I was wrong. And I probably never will.

Mr Speaker, we are not honourable ladies and gentlemen

Mr Speaker, we are not honourable ladies and gentlemen.

Let us look back to the Queen's speech debate on 13 May, concerning the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill. At one point the deputy speaker suggested that the member for Warrington North really intended to insert an "inadvertently" in her claim that the Secretary of State had misled the House. Might I suggest that she should have done no such thing?

*

The shadow education secretary had observed that it was "concerning... that the Minister for Universities was forced to admit on radio yesterday that this flawed legislation could have dangerous and troubling consequences, including potentially protecting holocaust deniers", to which the secretary of state responded rather histrionically in an intervention that "The Universities Minister never said that this would protect holocaust deniers".

But, as the shadow secretary of state was able to demonstrate by quoting a transcript of the programme, she did.

"The Universities Minister says: 'What this bill is designed to do is to protect and promote free speech which is lawful so any free speech which is lawful...'

The interviewer, Evan Davis, says: 'It is lawful isn’t it? Holocaust denial in this country is lawful isn’t it?'

The Minister says: 'So what I’m saying, yeah, so that’s...'

Evan Davis asks: 'So holocaust denial is okay, you’d defend a holocaust denier being invited to campus because that is part of the free speech argument?'

The Minister responds: 'Obviously it would depend on exactly what they were saying'."

To which the shadow secretary of state responded, "Madam Deputy Speaker, it never depends on what a holocaust denier is saying".

Mr Speaker, we might have ahead of us a long series of debates in committee, to ensure that holocaust deniers are handled correctly, but the simple fact in dispute here - that the Universities Minister told the Radio 4 audience that the bill would protect such a person - is resolved. She did, the secretary of state was wrong, and therefore he did mislead the house.

*

By contrast, there are occasions when the mistake perhaps is inadvertent. In PMQs on 28 April the Prime Minister claimed: "it is this Conservative Government who have built 244,000 homes in the last year, which is a record over 30 years". I can remember several ministers making the same mistake - Lord Pickles when he was a minister in David Cameron's government for example, or the Right Honourable member for Maidenhead when she was Prime Minister.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government publishes a series of documents which allow us to answer these questions quite easily. The figure 244,000 seems to come from the one entitled "Housing supply; net additional dwellings, England: 2019-20". Here we see that the number of net additional dwellings produced during 2019-2020 was 243,770, which is indeed a record for. . . the 29 years for which numbers are given. This number includes homes produced by conversions and change of use - and 9020 demolitions - as well as actual new homes, of which there were 220,600 in the year concerned.

Surely it is an inadvertent mistake that the prime minister - or his researcher - has taken the form of this answer from a series of old speeches and the latest important number from the front page summary of the statistics release. Surely.

*

So, Mr Speaker, I would like us to be considered honourable ladies and gentlemen. I would like our voters to remark on it, and I would like not have to use the phrase in every other sentence to assert something that may not be true.

Cry "God for Boris, the Union (but Saint George)!"

For most of us it started with Charlie Stayt "savagely" poking fun at the size of Honest Bob Jenrick's flag on the BBC Breakfast programme. So savage was it that co-host Naga Munchetty had to hold back a giggle. But then, Honest Bob was also amused. Was he enjoying the joke? Did he think it was puerile? Or was something already brewing?

A year ago there would have been no flag there.

Naturally, there was an Outcry, with BBC director-general Tim Davie having to assure us that the Corporation is "proud of being British" and that the Union Jack will still fly over its headquarters. The two presenters were "spoken to" and the strict new BBC social media policy had Ms Munchetty apologising and withdrawing "likes" for tweets about the incident.

The following week, Tim Davie gave evidence to the Commons Public Accounts Committee, which keeps an eye on public spending. James Wild, Conservative MP for Northwest Norfolk (who happens to be married to the Leader of the House of Lords) appeared to be better briefed on one subject than the director-general.

"In your annual report last year…" he asked, "do you know how many Union flags featured in any of the graphics in those glossy pages?" Davie had to admit that he had no idea, at which Wild pounced. "It was zero. Do you find that surprising?".

Davie's response was reasonably accomplished: "No. I think that is a strange metric. One of [the] things I looked at when I came into the building this morning was a Union Jack flying proudly on Broadcasting House, as it does on many days of the year. I have travelled around the world championing the UK. I sit on the private sector council for the GREAT campaign*. I don’t think there is any problem with the BBC in terms of championing the UK and Britain abroad. We are incredibly proud of it. If you wander up Regent Street today, have a look at the Union Jack flying proudly on top of the BBC" but Wild continued with what I took to be a veiled threat: "It is always good to see the Union Jack flying, but in a 268-page report about the BBC - the British Broadcasting Corporation - my constituents would probably expect to see more than one flag appearing".

(* GREAT is "the UK government's most ambitious international promotional campaign, uniting the efforts of the public and private sector to generate jobs and growth for Britain and Northern Ireland".)

I mentioned pouncing above. Scientist and presenter Adam Rutherford was one of many who were quick to point out that James Wild wasn't exactly practising what he preached. There are no Union flags in the 2019 Conservative manifesto, which must be a surprise mustn't it Mr Wild?

What's more, he seemed to have forgotten to include any flags on his website, or his Facebook page (this could all have changed by now of course). Broadening out a little, Boris Johnson had forgotten to request any flags on his website, as had Prince Charles, Prince William, Visit Britain, the Houses of Parliament, the RAF, Brexit Party Ltd (now reborn as the collection bucket for Reform UK), the British Lions, the British Museum. . .

There were a few on the Great British Bake Off though (look for the bunting).

****

Two days later an announcement came from the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. The Union flag is now to be flown from government buildings every day "unless another flag is being flown" rather than just on special days. They told us exactly why, in case we had any doubt (spot the difference).

The Culture Secretary said: "The Union flag unites us as a nation and people rightly expect it to be flown above UK Government buildings. This guidance will ensure that happens every day, unless another flag is being flown, as a proud reminder of our history and the ties that bind us."

The Housing Secretary said "Our nation’s flag is a symbol of liberty, unity and freedom that creates a shared sense of civic pride. People rightly expect to see the Union Flag flying high on civic and Government buildings up and down the country, as a sign of our local and national identity."

The people expect this, apparently, and they are right to do so. Pretty heavy stuff, and there's more to come. There is also a dense paragraph laying out rules for flying more than one flag at once, which manages both to give the Middlesex county flag and the Scottish saltire equal status and to suggest that the EU flag needn't ever be flown, even if - say - the Council president Charles Michel is visiting.

****

That afternoon along came John Hayes (Conservative MP for South Holland and the Deepings in Lincolnshire) to explain it all on Radio 4's PM programme (available for 19 days as I write - the item begins at around 16 minutes and the interview around 19 minutes).

Hayes told the host, Evan Davis: "We had a meeting with the Common Sense Group of Conservative MPs, with Oliver Dowden, and asked for exactly this… You know, people would look at government buildings and think, why on earth aren't they flying the flag?"

Davis asked whether he was really convinced that "people" noticed that, but Hayes was in full flow: "I think we just don't fly our flag enough actually. If you go to other countries, to the capitals of other countries - not that we can do that at the moment of course - if you went to the capitals of other countries, around the heart of those capitals, particularly on government buildings, you routinely see the flag of that country flying." [slight logical leap] "So it does seem to be something that unifies the country, that brings us together, that allows us to share in our national pride. What's wrong with that?"

Davis pushed again: "I guess I'm interested in why we're doing this now. 'Cause there is an interpretation that there's a little bit of politics in this, as opposed to just national unity and a bit of patriotism. Which is, you know there are lots of people who are less into the flag waving than you are Sir John and that this is really designed to put Labour on the back foot and to make it an argument in which Keir Starmer's forced to kind of say 'we support flying the flag' or to say 'this is a silly thing', and that it's really about creating an argument in a culture war that we don't need to have." 

A gift to Hayes! "So you're suggesting - I just want to be clear about the question - you're suggesting that Labour aren't as patriotic, Labour aren't as proud of their country. That's quite a bold charge."

"No…" protested Davis, "I'm suggesting that they don't measure their patriotism as much around the flag as you do and that that is why - there's definitely a difference in flag values, isn't there? - …there are many people reacting to this very badly on social media for example, you can find people saying this is just a distraction, it's game-playing, it's kind of forcing it on people when it doesn't need… and I'm just trying to work out whether there's a bit of politics as well as your desire to see the flag flying more."

"Patriotism, you could argue, is a political thing, so you're right of course," admitted Hayes. "If you don't share my faith in the nation then you perhaps wouldn't take such a clear view about it. But totems and emblems matter, don't they? In every civilisation and every society. Totems and emblems, being symbols of unity matter. And so flying the flag is of course an aesthetic thing, but it's more than that. It's what it says about us as a people, and it is unifying, and it is a matter of pride and purpose, and I see that as a positive thing. It's interesting isn't it? In my lifetime, many more people display flags in their own homes, display flags outside the home, in the home. I think that's probably a good thing, not a bad thing."

Davis hadn't finished: "But Margaret Thatcher never did this, Margaret Thatcher never felt it necessary to kind of spell it out this way, did she? But she was a patriot wasn't she? She was as patriotic as anybody."

"She was indeed," but now Hayes was repeating himself.

"Just finally," Davis was winding up. "Around that issue of unifying, one wonders whether, in the press release, likening the saltire, the Scottish flag, to the Middlesex county flag and saying local flags can hang alongside... I wonder whether that will unify the people of Scotland in the way you intend."

Hayes was running out of energy: "We've just all completed our census haven't we? And I'm proud to be English and British, and I know many Scots feel exactly the same, Scottish and British… So I do think there's a desire for this, we want to illustrate our pride in locality and our pride in nation. And what a good thing that is."

Since Keir Starmer won't say it, may I suggest "this is a silly thing", and that "it's really about creating an argument in a culture war that we don't need to have". It's being set up as a test of patriotism, a test of legitimacy. Rejecting it "rightly" as invalid and unacceptable might mean I've failed the test in Conservative eyes, but I won't take "it is unifying, and it is a matter of pride and purpose" as an order.

****

When I saw this one, (2 April) I knew the time was coming to stop. London's Evening Standard published a story which seemed to be about uniform/dress codes but also told us there was doubt about the leadership of the school. The headteacher had announced that the union flag, which "evokes often intense reactions" would not be flown during consultations.

"re-education camps for the insufficiently patriotic"? asked one reply, but Adam Rutherford was there again.

There's no flag on Mr Hunt's website, he pointed out, nothing on the constituency website, or Hunt's election manifesto, or the Ipswich Conservatives' site, or Hunt's Facebook page, or indeed the Ipswich Conservative headquarters.

Very much "do as I say, not what I do" again.

With God on our side

Does the Conservative party now think it has a monopoly of the Union flag? Does it think it needs one? Because now they're going for the Almighty as well.

These tweets have attracted many scornful replies and some truly angry protests at this presumption of morality, tweets about rich men and eyes of needles among them.

Again, this is aimed at Labour - painting them unpatriotic,ungodly and illegitimate - and with Starmer's ineffectual attempts at patriotism it might be enough to hold on to "red wall" voters who've been tempted by Honest Bob's Towns Fund goodies.

 

Happy anniversary?

The Union flag dates back to 1801 but its meaning has changed since then. The country I live in - the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - is 100 years old this year.

When he became Prime Minister in 2019, Boris Johnson gave himself the title Minister for the Union. He also commissioned a report on devolution from Lord Andrew Dunlop. This is now finished but - remind you of anything? - not yet published. One of its recommendations is reported to be the creation of a position titled "Secretary of State for Intergovernmental and Constitutional Affairs", a role which would be fulfilled by a Cabinet "big beast". If Johnson can find one.

If Boris Johnson is really serious about this, he could begin by publishing the Dunlop report, but why are we "looking forward to" a Festival of Brexit next year but not a Festival of the Union in 2021?

Bad information ruins lives - an email sent to BBC Radio 4 Feedback

Yesterday the report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities was published. It was immediately controversial, and the government would have expected that. The media were provided with some material from the report and the chair of the Commission was made available for interview. Was this good enough?

In the early part of the Today programme (around 6:35) the BBC home editor Mark Easton told Nick Robinson and the listeners that it was "slightly odd", and that "we're relying on selected lines which have been provided by the government". I saw two print/online journalists discussing the same thing on Twitter. The report itself was not to be published until 11:00, so all the listeners had to go on was (admittedly very relevant) interviews and several news items and introductions based on these "selected lines", but the "slight oddness" of that information was not mentioned at any other point in the programme.

Later that day, fact checkers FullFact published a comment by their chief executive Will Moy, lamenting this approach by government (and by media). "Will we accept these tactics again when the inquiry into how the coronavirus pandemic was handled is released?" he asked. "A favourable summary given press coverage while some convenient time later the rest of the report comes out?" He went on to propose "a parliamentary inquiry into the oversight of government communications to protect the good they do and the vital importance of good official information" and suggested "the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee [as] one of the possible routes to make that happen".

Former senior civil servant Jill Rutter responded "I also think it's up to journalists to refuse to report until the whole thing is available".

The sceptical audience's perception of government media management must be that information is released to prime the debate, ministers (or other approved speakers) are made available for the "morning shows" and then - far too often - everybody disappears when the report (or whatever) comes out later in the day.

I agree with Mr Moy, and sympathise with Ms Rutter (though which editor will hold back while others are running with the story?) and I would be grateful if you could get some comment from the editor or presenters of Today itself, as Radio 4's prime accomplice in/victim of these particular media management exercises.

Out with the old

The story so far...

Let's suspend Parliament to concentrate minds

It was five weeks after Boris Johnson's first trip to the Palace to become prime minister (with Parliament at work for just two days of that time) that Jacob Rees Mogg took a flight north to Balmoral, accompanied by Commons chief whip Mark Spencer and Natalie Evans, the leader of the House of Lords. They went to advise the Queen (that is, to instruct her) to suspend Parliament - or prorogue, in the jargon - for five weeks. There was to be a Queen's speech, they said.

This is hardly a big deal for a new prime minister - you'd expect a Queen's speech earlier than this - but Conservative Campaign HQ and the executive committee (a select group) of the "1922 Committee" (all the Tory MPs) had engineered the election to leave no time before the summer break.

It was just for a Queen's speech wasn't it?

Of course it wasn't - first, the complicated stuff.

Of the two cases which ended up at the Supreme Court for prorogation to be judged unlawful, the one in the Inner Court of Session in Scotland had acquired detailed evidence, as set out in pages 7 to 9 of Lady Hale's summary of the Supreme Court judgment. The three important aspects of the evidence for me are:

• The proposed prorogation was carefully crafted to occupy as many days as possible, but still not fall foul of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019, which was in turn designed to require reports from government ministers and prevent the long prorogation-for-No-Deal which had been feared.
• "The dates proposed sought to provide reassurance by ensuring that Parliament would sit for three weeks before exit and that a maximum of seven days were lost apart from the time usually set aside for the conference recess." No conference recess had been approved, and there were strong moves not to do so.
• "Politically, it was essential that Parliament was sitting before and after the EU Council meeting (which is scheduled for 17th-18th October). If the Queen’s Speech were on 14th October, the usual six-day debate would culminate in key votes on 21st and 22nd October. Parliament would have the opportunity to debate the Government’s overall approach to Brexit in the run up to the EU Council and then vote on it once the outcome of the Council was known." That "opportunity" never arose. Johnson's "ample time for debate" was pathetically and dishonestly kept so short as to be useless.

So that Queen's speech...?

It's easy really, as Jacob Rees-Mogg discovered a little later, when the plan changed so that there really would be a Queen's speech. An innocent-looking Leader of the House told Cardiff West MP Kevin Brennan, that "Prorogation will meet the judgment of the Court and, therefore, will be the time necessary to move to a Queen’s Speech, and no more".

It's worth noting that the two and a half weeks of prorogation before it was declared unlawful didn't produce a Queen's speech or, apparently, any part of one. It's as if they didn't do any work on it, as if that hadn't been the reason at all.

But even when there was a Queen's speech Parliament blocked it

No they didn't.

The speech was delivered on 14 October and the final decision - which went through by 16 votes - came ten days later, having eaten up a lot of that "ample time" Johnson had promised for debating Brexit.

And then they tried to block Brexit by forcing another extension

No they didn't.

The Benn Act prevented No Deal on 31 October, which was a serious risk, with all that "ample time" having gone. If Johnson wasn't lying about wanting a deal (now why would we even think that?) he really needed that extra time.

The EU Council meeting would be too late to achieve Brexit on 31 October, and the way Johnson actually achieved his deal - wasting two months after appointment, then frantically negotiating amendments to ten percent of the previous deal and eventually adopting parts of the deal before that, which he'd dismissed as unacceptable in September, and by abandoning the DUP he'd assured would never see that choice made by a British Conservative prime minister - lost him any hope of a majority in time. But MPs did not block Brexit, they temporarily blocked No Deal

(The ERG, of course, were right behind Arlene Foster and her crew. Until dumping them became the best way to achieve the higher prize - Brexit whatever.)

And then Parliament blocked the Withdrawal Agreement Bill

No they didn't.

With No Deal out of the way for the moment many of the Conservative rebels were happy to support the EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill, and enough Labour MPs joined them to give the bill a second reading (agreement in principle that the bill should go through the process of becoming law) by 30 votes.

What Johnson couldn't get through was the timetable for debate. Three days for all stages in the Commons was rightly seen as ridiculous, and trying to force the Lords to ignore the fact - for example - that the Bill presented no useful detail of how the new Northern Ireland "solution" would be implemented seemed likely to produce a battle, and quite possibly No Deal, if the 31 October deadline had to be observed.

So it wasn't. Thank you Mr Benn, Ms Cooper, Mr Letwin, and all who helped develop the legal manoeuvres to stop government doing maximum damage to the country, but not - I must stress - to stop Brexit.

So now what? No idea

The manifesto gives little detail, and who could expect to believe it anyway?

The Brexit timetable is still ridiculous - just three days again for the Withdrawal Agreement Bill - and the bill is even more unacceptable than before - among other things, parliamentary scrutiny over future negotiations has been removed. But a sizeable Conservative majority, who have all apparently signed in blood to support whatever deals Johnson manages to contrive, means he doesn't have to bother about that. The Lords will amend it, but they'll be forced to accept rejection of those amendments under pressure of time and No Deal on 31 January (it's always there).

One thing we can be sure of is that Johnson will avoid proper scrutiny whenever he can.

But whatever happens, No Deal must be on the table

Nope. As anybody who's ever bought a secondhand car knows (this is their favourite analogy, and I've been through that transaction myself a few times), walking away means you're no worse off, apart from the loss of some time. The terms of Article 50 mean you lose your membership at the deadline even if you have walked away. If you're going to do this Brexit thing, that seems like a really bad way to do it.

Because the EU only ever negotiates when they're close to a deadline

A lot of people parrot this line, but what past negotiations are they talking about? What other negotiations with the EU have had fixed deadlines?

Recent trade agreements with Vietnam, Singapore, Japan, etc which we've negotiated together while this Brexit thing was going on were finished when they were finished. Leaving the EU has a two-year timetable - it's different. May then negotiated a transition period of 21 months, extendable to 45 months, to negotiate (optimistically) a future UK-EU relationship. After a few Article 50 extensions and Johnson's master negotiation technique that's now eleven months, extendable to 35, and he's nailing us to the eleven.

Which will actually be about nine. The 27 would talk longer if we asked. They're not stupid. But if Johnson insists on his Christmas 2020 deadline he'll be faced with demands to commit to continuing full alignment of regulations in several fields. Here's a description of the data adequacy area which - together with financial equivalence - is discussed in the Times article referred to as if these requirements are somehow a surprise.

Anyway, it was Johnson, not the EU, who shifted after his little walk in the park with Varadkar. Falling into No Deal would be stupid - it would be make future talks longer and harder. Pursuing No Deal would be a policy which nobody campaigned for in 2016, as far as I can remember, so very few people would have voted for it. If that's Johnson's objective, he should be honest for once in his life and say so.

Now for the "people's priorities"

If they can fit them in.

Apart from all that legislation in the latest Queen's speech, much of which couldn't have been guessed at from the lightweight manifesto, what might there be to do? Significant parts of the country are still living with flooding or the effects of flooding, which Johnson shows no sign of reacting to. Then there are the homeless, who've been helped this week with... an announcement. Government certainly seems to have been embarrassed into action here, but some of the numbers are vague and some look a bit pathetic - "The Communities Secretary also announced £10 million – extended today by £3 million – for the Cold Weather Fund, which will boost life-saving support for rough sleepers during the cold winter weather". That's across the whole of England.

When Parliament opens again on 7 January Johnson will have been prime minister for 167 days, with Parliament sitting for just 35 of them, and in that time he's just about managed three sessions of Prime Minister's Questions. Watch for a proposal to change the format of PMQs for the avoidance of even more scrutiny. That's a real people's priority!

Or maybe a quick trip to Mustique

And now he has his majority he doesn't have to care, so off he and girlfriend Carrie Symonds fly to "the exclusive island" to "spend new year with the Von Bismarck family". As you do.

And "According to The Times, it is expected that Mr Johnson will pay for the flight himself" is apparently news. I wonder why that might be. I'll be keeping an eye on the Commons register of members' financial interests. He could be really strapped for cash compared with the last couple of years in which he's pulled in about £800,000 above his MP's salary - the House of Commons' top outside earner.