You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Donald Trump’ tag.
On May 6, 2023, Queen Consort Camilla will be crowned as Queen.
With that in mind, my weekday posts until then will be a retrospective of Queen Elizabeth II.
Family history
It is useful and interesting to look back on how the British had a succession of German monarchs dating back to George I.
On June 24, 2015, The Telegraph featured an article, ‘How German is the Queen?’
Excerpts follow, emphases mine.
Many Britons say we have a German monarchy, but our ties with that part of Europe and others date back to the Dark Ages:
It is, in fact, worth remembering that the word “English” is derived from the Angles, of Anglo-Saxon fame. When the Romans cleared out of Britain in AD 410, a range of German, Danish, and Dutch tribes that we sloppily call the Anglo-Saxons moved in from across the Whale Road. That’s not forgetting the Vikings either, who brought Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish blood to swathes of Britain. So, to be honest, if we scrutinise the Royal Family’s connections with the Fatherland, we should take a long look at our own, too, and acknowledge that this country has had the most profound and close genetic and cultural ties with the people of Germany and Scandinavia for over 1,500 years.
In 1701:
The Protestant King William III has no direct heirs, and his crown could soon pass to a Catholic. To prevent this, Parliament passes the Act of Settlement, locking them out of the succession.
In 1714:
William’s sister-in-law Queen Anne dies without children. The crown skips over 56 of her close Catholic relations to rest on George Ludwig, ruler of the German state of Hanover. He speaks very little English and relies on his ministers to run Britain for him.
In 1761:
George III takes the throne. He is still a Hanoverian, but unlike his father and grandfather he was born in London and speaks English as a first language.
In 1819:
A succession crisis prompts George III’s fourth son Edward to marry the princess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Their daughter, Victoria, will end up Queen – and marry her German cousin Albert.
In 1917:
Victoria’s line continues as the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. But the First World War – and the Russian revolution – call for a royal rebrand. George V renames it the House of Windsor.
Here’s how it happened:
When World War One bred increasing anti-German sentiment in Britain, astute observers noted that Kaiser Bill was Queen Victoria’s grandson and our King George V’s first cousin. In recognition of the delicacy of the position, George V changed the name of his royal house from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor, after the castle. At the same time, he also took the modern step of adopting Windsor as a surname for his family.
Thirty years later, in 1947, the future Queen married Prince Philip:
Philip is a member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg. But, with the Second World War fresh in Britain’s memory, he abandons these titles before his marriage.
When she acceded the throne in 1952:
Queen Elizabeth II chose to keep the name Windsor, and in 1960 the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh announced that they wanted their descendants who do not have an HRH title to be Mountbatten-Windsor. (Mountbatten is the Duke of Edinburgh’s adopted name. His German-Danish-Greek royal lines are Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glūcksburg on his father’s side, and Battenberg on his mother’s.)
The Royal Family still follow German customs at Christmas:
The Royal Family still opens its presents on Christmas Eve, following the German tradition, which Prince Albert was particularly keen on following.
However, it is also important to point out that the Queen was also a direct descendant of Britain’s royal houses:
… there’s no point overstating it. The Queen is also directly descended from over a thousand years worth of Britain’s royal houses, including the Stuarts, Tudors, Plantagenets, Angevins, Normans, and Wessex.
That means King Charles is, too.
Politics
The Queen was acquainted with 15 Prime Ministers during her reign. Liz Truss was the last.
A 2019 Tatler retrospective shows her pictured with several of them, beginning with Sir Winston Churchill. You won’t want to miss the photographs, which end with Boris Johnson. How time changed through the decades.
Here is a video of the Queen and other members of the Royal Family at a G7 drinks reception in 1991. At that time, John Major was Prime Minister and George H W Bush was president. However, other former Prime Ministers also attended:
The video is known for a quip that the Queen made to Sir Edward ‘Ted’ Heath (1970-1974), who is not held in the highest esteem among Britons who were around in the 1970s:
Guido Fawkes gives us the quote (emphasis his):
One of the highlights of the clip is the Queen saying what we all knew directly to Ted Heath’s face; when the former PM mentioned he’d been to Baghdad the Queen jokingly responds, “I know you did, you’re expendable”. The Queen of diplomacy…
The Queen was also astute in other political matters, such as economic crises. The monarch goes through a red box every day with updates on national and world affairs.
On April 13, 2020, The Express told us about her consternation at the 2008 banking crisis:
… unearthed reports shed light on how Queen Elizabeth II reacted to the turmoil on the international markets twelve years ago.
According to a 2008 report by the Telegraph, during a briefing by academics at the London School of Economics (LSE), Her Majesty asked: “Why did nobody notice it?”
Professor Luis Garicano, director of research at the LSE’s management department, had explained the origins and effects of the credit crisis when she opened the £71 million New Academic Building.
The Queen then described the turbulence on the markets as “awful”.
Prof Garicano said: “She was asking me if these things were so large how come everyone missed it.”
He told the Queen: “At every stage, someone was relying on somebody else and everyone thought they were doing the right thing” …
The Queen’s investments, largely in British blue chip companies, broadly tracked the market, resulting in a 25 percent fall in her portfolio’s value.
Philip Beresford, compiler of The Rich List, told the publication: “I would think she will have taken an enormous hit.
“Though maybe not as much as people who did racy investments in shares.”
On April 21, 2019, the Queen celebrated her 93rd birthday and became the longest reigning British monarch and longest-serving current head of state in the world at the time:
At the beginning of the month, the Conservative government was having an exceedingly difficult time getting Brexit legislation through Parliament.
Lord James of Blackheath CBE wanted the Queen to step in and resolve the issue (emphases in the original):
The way forward from this is to:-
1. Make an immediate appeal to the United Nations making reference to a potential breach of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaty Making 1969 under Article 46.1, with a view to seeking an adjudication that the EU is attempting to force us to agree a treaty based upon fundamentally unconstitutional arrangements unacceptable to the British Crown …
2. If the application could be supported by Her Majesty, it would add significant force. This application to the UN could surely be assembled by a Government legal team within a single working day and be ready to be presented by the UK’s Ambassador to the UN on behalf of Her Majesty within 48 hours …
4 The dire constitutional consequences of remaining will very likely force an abdication by the Monarch. She would either have to accept a state of perjury or maintain the Crown’s honour by abdication. Her oaths of office will have become entirely corrupted such that no successor could undertake them, thus the total demise of the Crown is a very real and inherent risk in remaining.
Failure to terminate the membership of the European Union will continue to lead us all deeper into a treasonous liability arising from placing our governance subject to a foreign Potentate. That Potentate is unelected by the UK’s electorate, is unaccountable to them and irremovable by them.
This is an absolute affront to the Dignity and Majesty of the Crown. It could foreshadow the total demise of the Monarchy.
When Brexit is finally done, Parliament must be shown to have discharged its absolute responsibility not to have reduced its own omnipotence.
However, a spokesman for Her Majesty said that she would not become involved in the Brexit rows:
One year later, on the evening of Sunday, April 5, 2020, the Queen made the rare move of addressing the nation outside of her Christmas speech. She spoke to us about the pandemic:
The nation was in its first-ever lockdown and Her Majesty gave us a short televised message about keeping our chins up, telling us that we would meet again, echoing Dame Vera’s Second World War hit song:
The ratings were massive:
Her address even made the main French news channel BFMTV:
That evening, just after the Queen’s broadcast ended, Boris Johnson entered St Thomas’ Hospital with coronavirus:
Admiration for the Queen went up by 30%. The Government’s ratings went up by 29%:
The Queen also entertained American presidents.
She welcomed the Obamas twice, once in 2011 and again in 2016.
On April 22, 2016, The Mail reported:
Barack Obama paid a heartfelt tribute to the Queen today, calling her ‘a real jewel to the world’ and ‘one of my favourite people’ after he and his wife Michelle had an intimate lunch with Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh.
Speaking alongside David Cameron at a Press conference in London, the US President took the opportunity to praise the Queen on the occasion of her 90th birthday – and also joked about the ‘smooth ride’ he and Mrs Obama had when Prince Philip drove them in his Range Rover.
Mr Obama, who is making his last trip to Britain as President, shared a meal with the Queen at Windsor Castle before his summit with the Prime Minister.
He came equipped with a gift – an album of photos showing the Queen meeting various Presidents – which he handed over shortly after the Duke took the role of his chauffeur, driving both couples 400 yards from their helicopter landing site to the door of the castle.
Three years later, it was Donald Trump’s turn for a State Visit:
The Express reported:
The Buckingham Palace event will be held as Britain and the US mark 75 years since D-Day.
US President Trump and his wife Melania will be guests of the Queen during a three-day visit, beginning on June 3.
Here is a photo of President Trump inspecting the troops at Windsor Castle with the Queen following behind:
Protocol
Although the Queen was a stickler for protocol, there were times when she relented.
Once was when Prince Charles insisted that Princess Diana’s body be flown home on the Royal jet.
In 2021, the story emerged of the Queen’s reason for denying it — they were divorced — then giving in to her son on August 31, 1997. The Express reported:
After Diana’s death in Paris, the Prince of Wales reportedly had an argument with the Queen about how his ex-wife’s body should be brought back to the UK. It has been reported that Prince Charles wanted to travel to Paris on the royal plane to bring Diana’s body home but the Queen initially disagreed. Richard Kay, a friend of Princess Diana, told the Channel 5 documentary, Diana: 7 Days That Shook the Windsors: “This was a surprising and brave move.
“He had no right to be there other than as the father of her sons.
“Charles wanted to take the royal flight to Paris but the Queen wouldn’t allow it.
“Charles fought harder for Diana than he had ever fought for her in her lifetime.”
His request to travel to Paris was initially refused.
However, Prince Charles did not want to back down and eventually, the Queen gave him permission to use the royal plane to bring back Diana.
When Prince Charles arrived in Paris Princess Diana’s former butler, Paul Burrell, was in the hospital.
Speaking on the Channel 5 documentary he said: “He was devastated.
“This was a woman he had loved in his own way.”
Princess Diana’s coffin was taken to the royal plane, which was waiting at an airport in Paris.
This was just 16 hours after she had died.
The royal plane then landed at RAF Northolt just outside of London.
In 2011, the Queen came up with a plan to entertain the Obamas, who were not invited to Prince William’s wedding. This was another story that did not see the light of day until several years later.
On April 14, 2020, The Express reported:
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge walked down the aisle more than eight years ago. It was April 29, 2011, and Kate Middleton made history when she said “I do” to Prince William at Westminster Abbey. The day was declared a public holiday in the UK, but because the Duke of Cambridge is not the first-in-line to the throne, the wedding was not a full state occasion, which meant many details of the big day were left down to the couple …
The guest list included more than 1,900 people and had its fair share of celebrities – including the Beckhams, Sir Elton John, the late Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and David Cameron.
However, there were two people missing from the guest list, who had been widely expected to attend.
The Queen personally invited 40 heads of state, who received gold-embossed invitations.
Former US President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, however, were not among them.
According to a 2011 report by the Daily Mail, the Government organised a state visit the following month – the first for a US President since 2002 – in return for Mr Obama not coming to the wedding.
The couple did not receive the invitation, the report claims, because of the added security costs involved with protecting the former President.
French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni also missed out and Prince Andrew’s former wife, Sarah Ferguson – the Duchess of York – was also snubbed.
The Queen had a wonderful way of working quietly with the utmost discretion. In her reign, no one dared leak anything from her office.
One hopes that will continue to be true with King Charles.
Having devoted most of the pandemic years to reading about coronavirus and the politics surrounding it, I fell behind in my usual perusal of periodicals.
This explains why the article about Melania Trump that I reference below comes from the November 2020 issue of Tatler, the UK’s oldest society publication.
‘What’s her deal?’ by Ben Judah, a British author and journalist with a deep knowledge of world affairs, runs from pages 90 through 97. Mrs Trump also willingly answered questions via email.
It also includes modelling photos of a teenage and twenty-something Melania, including a dramatic Warholesque ad for Camel cigarettes from 1997 (page 94). The colourful advert was painted on the sides of two buildings at the corner of 6th Avenue and 42nd Street. On one building is painted the brand name in its original font and on the other is Melania sitting against a dark background, holding a lit Camel in one hand and a martini in the other. At eight and a half storeys high, it was huge — or should I say ‘yuge’? Above her sultry image are the words: ‘WORTH SMOKING FOR’.
One thing that has puzzled me about the former first lady are her eyes, the windows into the soul. They were not always the narrow ones we know from her time with Donald Trump. In fact, in her early years, including in the Camel advert, they were very much open and beautiful. They were her best asset. I wonder if she had ‘work done’, as it were. She should have left them alone.
Summaries and quotes from Ben Judah’s article follow, emphases mine.
Early years
By all accounts, Melanija Knavs spent a happy childhood with her parents and sister Ines in Sevnica, Yugoslavia, before it became part of Slovenia.
Page 92 has a photo of Melanija and Ines at a birthday party with seven other children. The kitchen table has a lovely damask tablecloth in a chequerboard weave and an elaborate two-layer cake with candles, rather surprising for the Communist era. Someone had Party connections.
We learn that:
Melania’s parents stood out in the small railway town of Sevnica, where she was brought up. ‘I grew up with a beautiful family and had a wonderful childhood’, Melania says. ‘My mother and father taught us the importance of education, hard work and family,’ Her father, Viktor (who bears a striking resemblance to Donald Trump), was a car mechanic and chauffeur at a time when such small-time entrepreneurs were treated with scorn. Her mother, Amalija, worked as a pattern-maker at the Jutranjka clothes factory and had a passion for design; friends would call her ‘Jackie Kennedy’ because she wore heels on the production line. She spent hours making clothes for Melania and her older sister, Ines, ensuring they were always immaculately turned out. Melania says it was while she was growing up that she first heard of this ‘amazing place called America’.
Her childhood friend Petra Sedej participated in Ben Judah’s article:
Petra Sedej now works in marketing for the Slovenian traffic agency — the kind of destiny that was more likely for Melania than the one she ended up securing. Back then, Sedej was one of the future First Lady’s closest friends; they’d gone to school together. ‘She was a quiet person,’ she recalls. ‘In all the pictures and on TV today, she’s a very serious person. But she can also make jokes and be funny.’ Presentation was very important to Melania — and to her family. No matter what was happening, Sedej remembers her friend always looked perfect, ‘with mascara and everything’ …
‘Her mother is the secret to understanding her,’ says Sedej. Melania’s parents did well: well enough to have a small flat in Ljubljana for Melania to live in when she moved to the city to study.
Sedej lived nearby:
On the bus to school, they would talk about boys, and after class Sedej would go round to Melania’s flat in the suburbs and the two would flick through the faraway world of Vogue together. We were not party girls and we did not go out very often,’ Sedej says, recalling that Melania was committed to her studies at the time. Yet she also loved modelling and hired a photographer to put a portfolio together for her. As Sedej notes, ‘This is not something you’d do for a hobby.’ Though they never talked about it, Sedej sensed Melania wanted to leave the country. ‘When you are friends with someone for a long time, you just feel there is something more. We both wanted to do something more with our lives.’
The photographer
It is unclear whether the photographer Melania first met was the one who put the portfolio together for her.
That said:
It all began in January 1987, in Ljubljana, back in what was then still Yugoslavia. Melanija Knavs was 16. The photographer Stane Jerko was leaving early from a fashion show at the city’s Festival Hall. ‘By the staircase at the entrance, I saw this girl,’ he says. Melania was leaning on a fence. It looked as if she w[ere] waiting for someone. ‘She was tall, slim, with long hair,’ says Jerko. ‘I told her who I was, what I did, and why I would photograph her.’ In the pre-Instagram age, this was how you found new faces.
Behind the facade of communism, the city was fizzing with punk, fashion and nationalist pampleteers. Rebellion was in the air. Melania, a student at a specialist high school for industrial design and photography, took a chance. Her plan had been to study to be an architect, but now she was going to pose for a shoot. Already her most defining features were visible to Jerko: she had a face that gave nothing away. ‘She was shy and reserved at first,’ he says. ‘Not wanting to open herself up.’ But she quickly got into it and began asking questions: ‘Why are you constantly moving the light? Is this how I should be holding myself?’
‘Still, I didn’t have the impression she was ambitions,’ says Jerko. ‘She was timid.’ The pictures he developed looked great. ‘So I called her back to do a shoot for the Slovenian magazine Model.’ Her career had launched, though Jerko noticed there was still something closed off about her.
Two of those photos are on page 90 and 93, showing an open-eyed, budding young woman.
The boyfriend
Amazingly, Ben Judah managed to track down one of Melania’s boyfriends (page 93):
In 1989, the Berlin Wall came down; months later, Yugoslavia began to implode. In 1990, Slovenia voted for independence and the following year, the Yugoslav forces withdrew after a 10-day war. Everyday life was filled with talk of this drama. Slovenian businessman Jure Zorcic was one of Melania’s boyfriends, having met her when they were in their early 20s. ‘She was very classy, very peaceful, very focused,’ remembers Zorcic. ‘Very close to her parents and sister.’ She was always carefully dressed, which, given the state of the Yugoslavian economy at the time, he recalls, was nothing short of ‘a miracle’. It was a moment in Eastern Europe, between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, when anything felt possible.
‘We talked about everything,’ says Zorcic. ‘About Yugoslavia, our future.’ Together, they whiled away the summer with friends in the beach towns of Croatia. ‘We would laugh a lot and have fun.’ Melania would tell him how ‘she wanted to go abroad and catch the fashion world of Italy and France as a model’. But it still came as a shock when she actually left; their relationship was over. As central Europe began to make the jump from communism towards Nato and the EU, Melania made her own jump to Milan and then to New York. She had her sights on America and all her life experiences had led her to one conclusion: ‘I can tell you that I believe in free market capitalism,’ she says.
Milan and the name change
Melania changed her name in Milan (page 94):
When Melania first landed in Milan in 1992, she signed with an agency and first began using a different name — ditching the Slavic Melanija Knavs for the more Germanic Melania Knaus. (The extra ‘s’s came later: Melania Knauss, as if to stress an Western lineage.) And in what now looks like a piece of visionary surrealism, one of her biggest shoots was for a Slovenian advert in which she played the first female US president, complete with mock Air Force One and motorcade.
From Paris to New York
Melania was getting older, which hindered in some ways but helped in others:
She moved to Paris in her mid-20s. Here, she was scouted again, this time by Paolo Zampolli, a New York-based Italian playboy and model manager, who urged her to move to Manhattan, where he would put her up and represent her. She took the gamble, arriving in New York in 1996 to live in a shared apartment off Gramercy Park that Zampolli arranged. The bedroom — if you could even call it that — was behind a Styrofoam wall, with just enough space for a futuon. It was very much a gamble: at 26, she was already much older than the average aspiring model hoping to make it in one of Manhattan’s cruellest industries. But the word most used about Melania from her fashion days is ‘determined’.
Her age helped her to get the aforementioned Camel advert (pp 94-95):
Too old to hit the big time in conventional campaigns, Melania had her lucky break as a cigarette model, thanks to a law that barred younger models from promoting tobacco. In the summer of 1997, her face towered over Times Square for Camel Lights. ‘I wouldn’t say she reached supermodel height,’ says Irene Marie, who later represented Melania. ‘She wasn’t the most expensive model, but she was a high-end model.’ In Melania, Marie saw a refined and composed young woman. ‘What I particularly liked about Melania was that she wasn’t part of the nightlife scene, where all you had to do was open different magazines to see whech clubs your models were at. It was the era of cocaine, drugs and clubs, and you had to watch out for your models.’ Melania, though, had a reputation for being serious and focused …
Meeting Donald Trump
It was Paolo Zampolli who introduced her to her future husband (page 95):
… in 1998, he introduced her to his friend and fellow staple of the New York gossip columns, Donald Trump, who had recently separated from his second wife, Marla Maples. Melania met Trump at the Kit Kat Club during New York Fashion Week. Trump later claimed he had been there to see someone else: ‘They said, “Look, there’s so-and-so.” I said, “Forget about her. Who is the one on the left?” It was Melania’ …
Trump and Melania married in Palm Beach in 2005, surrounded by 10,000 flowers. It was Trump’s third wedding. Bill and Hillary Clinton were guests, as was Benjamin Netanyahu. Almost nobody from Melania’s life before Trump was there — it was as though she didn’t have a past.
Frankly, that’s what happens when one emigrates and marries. The spouse’s friends and family become one’s primary relationships. How could they not?
Melania gave birth the following year:
Barron was born in 2006, around the time Trump allegedly had affairs with the pornographic actress Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal: both would come back to haunt him.
Melania’s mysterious delay in moving to the White House
In 2017, it took five months for Melania to move from Trump Tower in Manhattan to the White House.
In Mary Jordan’s unauthorised biography, The Art of Her Deal, where you can see an early modelling photo of Melania, it is asserted that the First Lady was incensed by the womanising stories from the past that came out on the 2016 campaign trail (page 94):
According to Jordan, Melania leveraged the infamous ‘grab ’em by the pussy’ tape and the Stormy Daniels affair to force a renegotiation of her prenup, securing a better financial deal for herself and her son, Barron. Jordan claims it was because of these negotiations, rather than Brron’s schooling, that she delayed moving to Washington and stayed in New York after the election. ‘I was worried about Trump,’ says one source, ‘and so were a lot of folks in the White House, as she makes him less unbalanced.’ It took her until five months after the inauguration to finally relocate, better prenup in hand, to Washington — a move worthy of her husband’s book The Art of the Deal. Popular as it is, the myth that Melania is a prisoner in the White House misses the real power she has. And yet for all the intensity of interest in her, Melania is still mostly an enigma — Stephanie Grisham, her chief of staff, discmissed Jordan’s biography as ‘fiction’.
Trouble with Ivanka
Melania allegedly found a rival in Trump’s daughter, Ivanka:
… ‘The Portrait’ is how Ivanka is said to refer to Melania, in light of how little her stepmother speaks.
There is supposedly little love lost between them. Melania’s former friend and adviser Stephanie Winston Wolkoff describes Ivana’s dogged attempts to sideline her stepmother in her new memoir Melania and Me, alleging that the competition between the two Trump women became so fierce that Melania and Wolkoff launched ‘Operation Block Ivanka’ to stop her dominating footage of the searing-in. ‘Ivanka was relentless and determined to be the First Daughter and to usurp office space out from under Melania.’ Wolkoff writes.
Conclusion
It is a shame that no fashion magazine ever profiled the First Lady. It seems that Tatler did so only as a last hurrah in the run-up to the 2020 election.
Melania Trump’s life story is a fascinating one, particularly given her transformation from a little girl growing up in a Communist nation to becoming First Lady of the United States. It is a truly remarkable journey.
On page 97, Ben Judah says:
It has been 24 years since Melania first arrived in New York, on the cusp of what has been one of the most astonishing American success stories ever told: the Slovenian model and the gossip-pages-obsessed mogul who ended up in the Whte House. And it’s easy to forget that from Melania’s perspective she is the real winner here. How many people have come from somewhere so small and yet made it so big? Very few.
The former First Lady told Tatler via email (page 92):
Every step in my life had a different turning point. Growing up in Slovenia, living in both Milan and Paris at a young age, then moving to the United States and living in New York City in my 20s — all of that has led to my serving our great nation as First Lady.
Melania Trump might well be in the spotlight once again for the 2024 elections. Whether she is or not, at least we know a bit more about her. It is a pity that the universally anti-Trump media ignored her and her life’s achievements when they could have published them as an inspiration for young women around the world.
Moral of the story: never let go of your dreams.
Yesterday’s post covered Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation as First Minister of Scotland on February 15 and the reasons for it.
The story continues.
More reaction
When Jacinda Ardern stood down in New Zealand, British conservatives wondered if Sturgeon would follow suit.
After all, the metropolitan elite adored both female ‘saints’, mothers of their respective nations.
On Thursday, February 16, The Telegraph‘s Jenny Hjul pointed out (emphases mine):
In her eight-plus years as Scotland’s First Minister, Sturgeon has been loved and loathed in equal measure at home, something she acknowledged in her press conference. But beyond her domain, she has been regarded in many circles as an almost saintly presence, a pioneer of progressive causes, and a beacon of pure, strong leadership.
To the frustration of her critics in Scotland, she has been able to pull the wool over the eyes of London liberals in particular and garnered a good press over her botched handling of everything from Covid to the fall-out from Brexit.
In her parting, parallels will no doubt be drawn with that other recent quitter, and Sturgeon idol, Jacinda Ardern. Like the former premier of New Zealand, the SNP leader’s attempt to portray her departure as an honourable exit will be taken at face value by those who understand little of the domestic politics that have made her position untenable in the long-term.
Sturgeon, like Ardern, banged on about running out of steam, about the pressures of the job and the constant scrutiny. And she flagged up what she saw as her achievements (“Scotland is a fairer country”), while regretting that she could not bring more rationality to politics. “If all parties were to take this opportunity to try to de-polarise public debate just a bit,” she pleaded.
This is rich indeed from a politician who has thrived not just on driving divisions between Scotland and the rest of the UK but on polarising opinion north of the border.
Far from being democracy’s champion, her party has shut down dissenting voices while claiming to represent the whole of Scotland. Under her tenure, Scotland has become all but a one-party state, with many public bodies, and civic and cultural organisations captured by SNP groupthink.
Sturgeon said her decision to stand down had crystallised over the past few weeks, perhaps since Ardern’s resignation showed that even great (by their own reckoning) leaders have their limits. But more likely it is because her grip has gone – over her party, which is divided and growing rebellious, and her country, which is further away than ever from voting Yes …
To her wider fan club, she may have relinquished her crown with grace, but to those who know her better it is her final face-saving gesture.
The Gender Recognition Reform Bill, which the British government vetoed by using Section 35 provisions for the first time, has caused a split within the Scottish National Party. On Thursday, February 16, The Times reported that Party members’ views are divided on the legislation:
The Scottish government has until April 17 to decide whether to appeal against the UK government’s veto of the legislation, which would allow people to self-identify their gender and lower the age of transition to 16.
The SNP’s ruling national executive committee will meet tonight to decide the rules and timetable for the leadership contest, raising the prospect that there may not be a new first minister in place before the key call has to be made …
“I think it dies in its current form,” a senior SNP source said. “The sensible approach would be [for the new leader] to get round the table [with the UK government] and find a compromise on the bill.”
The party is split on the bill, meaning whatever happens it will be controversial. Opening talks with Conservative ministers will anger those who lobbied for the bill to be pushed through with little compromise.
However, there is a significant number of elected representatives and grassroots members who are concerned about fighting a court case when a recent poll found that 50 per cent of voters in Scotland back the UK government’s position …
Mixed reactions
When Liz Truss was Prime Minister, she labelled Nicola Sturgeon an ‘attention seeker’ and, as such, someone to be ignored. She never contacted Sturgeon.
Rishi Sunak was different and got in touch soon after he entered No. 10. He was rather gushing on her departure:
President Trump, on the other hand, viewed Sturgeon differently:
The day she resigned, he posted a statement on his 2024 campaign website:
Good riddance to failed woke extremist Nicola Sturgeon of Scotland! This crazed leftist symbolizes everything wrong with identity politics. Sturgeon thought it was OK to put a biological man in a women’s prison, and if that wasn’t bad enough, Sturgeon fought for a “Gender Recognition Reform Bill” that would have allowed 16-year-old children to change their gender without medical advice. I built the greatest Golf properties in the World in Scotland, but she fought me all the way, making my job much more difficult. The wonderful people of Scotland are much better off without Sturgeon in office!
Catalogue of failures
Is Trump right?
While he is no fan of the former US president, Scottish Conservatives leader Douglas Ross would agree with those sentiments.
On the morning of February 15, the sun was shining in the north east of Scotland, where Ross, an MP and MSP, was campaigning for candidates in an upcoming by-election. The sun was shining:
That was at 9:46. In just over an hour, the sun would shine even brighter with the unexpected news of Sturgeon’s resignation.
The following tweet represents the political disconnect among the Scottish public between those who thought Sturgeon was a disaster and those who thought she was a saint:
I will certainly miss First Minister’s Questions which always began with a Sturgeon-Ross face-off. In the last two sessions, Sturgeon was unable to answer Ross’s question about sexual identity — 12 times, no less.
The evening that she resigned, Ross wrote in The Telegraph about her catalogue of failures:
She is, rightly, regarded as a formidable politician. But equally, it’s hard to dispute that, by obsessing over independence, she has always governed in the nationalist interest, rather than the national interest.
Any rational analysis of her record as First Minister would have to conclude that it’s one of failure.
On education, the policy area she asked to be judged on, it’s dismal. Scotland tumbled so far down the international league tables that we were withdrawn from them to save face.
For a self-avowed “progressive”, Nicola Sturgeon’s abject failure to eradicate the poverty-related attainment gap, as promised, is a damning indictment of her reign.
Then, there’s the increased violence in our classrooms and the first teacher strikes in almost 40 years.
On her watch, Scotland’s NHS is on its knees with record waiting times for treatment and burnt-out, exhausted staff. The root cause is dismal workforce planning by successive SNP health secretaries, including Nicola Sturgeon who cut the number of funded places for homegrown medical students at Scottish universities.
Similarly, on transport, the ledger is grim. The ferries scandal is the most egregious case of wasteful public spending in the devolution era, with the latest cost estimates (£450 million) showing it’s set to overtake the Scottish Parliament building as a money pit.
But it’s about so much more than taxpayers’ cash being squandered. It bears two other hallmarks of the Sturgeon government: remote Scotland being an afterthought and secrecy.
Meanwhile, the death toll on two of Scotland’s vital trunk roads, the A9 and A96, continues to rise while the SNP, in thrall to the anti-car Greens, drag their heels on long-standing promises to expand the dual carriageways, and our trains remain over-priced and unreliable under nationalised ScotRail.
The First Minister has grown increasingly out of touch with the public mood in recent months, leaving her successor with dilemmas over whether to ditch or amend flawed policies, such as the National Care Service, the Deposit Return Scheme and, of course, gender self-ID.
By tying herself in knots over the latter, she was left in the absurd position of being unable to refer to a double rapist as a man.
That, coupled with her dismissal – indeed, smearing – of those who warned that her Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill threatened women and girls’ safety betrayed her “I know best” arrogance.
Arguably, Nicola Sturgeon’s greatest failing is Scotland’s drug death epidemic, which has mushroomed to such an extent under her that fatality rates are now the worst in Europe by an enormous margin.
“We took our eye off the ball” was her slip-of-the-tongue mea culpa for those appalling statistics. But it could, and should, serve as her wider epitaph.
Coronavirus measures
Ross did not mention, or perhaps he agreed with, Sturgeon’s draconian coronavirus policies.
From the start, she did things more radically than Boris Johnson. For whatever reason, the BBC televised her lengthy lunchtime coronavirus press conferences throughout the UK, when her policies pertained only to Scotland.
Her right-hand woman was Devi Sridhar, an American public health researcher who is the chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh. The BBC frequently interviewed Sridhar for all the UK to see and hear, a subtle attempt to get every other Briton on board with Scotland’s draconian policies.
In April 2020, the SNP’s then-Westminster leader Ian Blackford MP wrote to Boris to delay full Brexit because of the pandemic.
On Sunday, April 5, The Express reported:
In his letter, Mr Blackford urges Mr Johnson to seek an extension to the current transition period in a bid to focus resources and efforts on tackling the pandemic – claiming failure to do would be “beyond reckless”. He added: “We are not asking you to change your views on Brexit – we are simply asking you to recognise reality.”
“This isn’t about fighting old battles or rehearsing old arguments – it’s about recognising the needs of people right now.”
Fortunately, Boris ignored him.
However, that same day proved that the SNP was not whiter than white. Sturgeon’s chief medical officer Dr Catherine Calderwood had already broken lockdown restrictions twice by travelling to her weekend home from Edinburgh.
Sturgeon did not act and even initially refused Calderwood’s resignation.
If she had stayed then Ms Sturgeon and, probably the British government too, would have had to face the fact that for many politicians, the media and for huge sections of a terrified and angry general public, it will be this doctor – and not the nation’s battle against a killer virus – who would have become the main issue. Dr Calderwood would have been the story, not coronavirus. And in the harsh world of politics, that’s what ultimately counts.
She admitted that not once but twice she drove the 40-odd miles to her second home at a time when she is on our TV screens and in our newspapers constantly urging the rest of the population to stay at home and not to go off on non-essential trips to the countryside.
Whichever way you cut it, and although the First Minister insisted that she still depended on this lady’s medical support, her foolish actions threatened to drive a coach and horses through the official advice – advice that Dr Calderwood helped draw up – on which the nation depends to beat this virus.
Ms Sturgeon was extraordinarily generous in refusing initially to accept Dr Calderwood’s offer to resign and for insisting, somewhat ingenuously, that everyone makes mistakes. That is true, of course, but the reality is that for this senior official, this was no ordinary slip-up.
On the contrary, on two successive weekends Dr Calderwood decided to get into her car and do what she’s been telling the rest of us not to do – and take a non-essential trip away from the city of Edinburgh to her holiday home in the Fife seaside village of Earlsferry. Trips that earned her an official and extraordinary warning from the police …
Moreover, what is already sticking in the craw of many people is that this is someone who has been a firm advocate of the severe restrictions imposed on the rest of the population who has decided to ignore them to visit her second home.
That this second home is in one of Scotland’s most expensive seaside villages, much favoured by Edinburgh’s better-off classes, will also not be lost on her critics.
SNP politicians said the doctor had to go, at which point Sturgeon relented:
She hoped that would have enabled the doctor to hang onto her position albeit in a backroom role but I’m certain that this experienced politician would have known that it was a hopeless situation.
That view was magnified by the ferocious level of protests she received from leading SNP politicians who said they were reflecting serious unease amongst the party faithful about Dr Calderwood’s behaviour.
The hypocrisy of it all!
That month, an allegation surfaced that England was stealing Scotland’s PPE supplies, a claim which Sturgeon retracted mid-month but, according to one Conservative MSP, allowed to continue spreading north of the border. On April 15, The Express reported (with a video of one of her press conferences):
At Ms Sturgeon’s daily briefing, she promised to seek urgent clarity on reports that Scottish care homes were being given a lower priority for supplies of personal protective equipment. Claims of PPE priority for England surfaced on Monday and came from Donald Macaskill, the head of Scottish Care, which is the body representing private care homes in Scotland. He told BBC Radio Scotland the UK’s four largest suppliers had said they were not sending to Scotland and instead prioritising “England, the English NHS and then English social care providers”.
Andrew Neil mocked the First Minister of Scotland and tweeted: “Nicola Sturgeon told GMB [Good Morning Britain] that she accepts assurances that NHS England did not demand PPE suppliers give preference over Scotland …”
Jamie Greene, Scottish Conservative MSP for West Scotland tweeted: “They’re still spouting the story, contrary to the language now being used by the FM, Health Secretary, and Clinical Director.
“If you’re going to manufacture a grievance, at least coordinate it. Even their target audience is boring of the needless (dangerous) scaremongering.”
UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock spoke to health ministers from different UK nations on Tuesday afternoon and insisted it had not instructed any company to prioritise PPE for one nation over the others.
Sturgeon often wanted to appear to be ahead of the curve as a means of scoring political points targeting Boris’s policies for England. Unfortunately, he caved in all too often and followed suit.
On April 23, The Mail reported:
Ms Sturgeon has repeatedly gazumped Number 10 during the coronavirus crisis as she has moved on key issues before ministers in London.
Previous examples include announcing a ban on large social gatherings, closing schools and saying that the original three week lockdown would be extended.
That article laid out Sturgeon’s plans to reopen Scotland soon.
Three days later, she was unable to give any further clarity, despite her announcement. As the reply says, when Boris hesitated, he was accused of obfuscation while Sturgeon was praised for her notional transparency:
Incredibly, on May 5, Sturgeon was pictured shaking hands with Bill Gates. It was okay for them, when no one else was allowed to do so. And look how close they were to each other. More hypocrisy:
Then it emerged that, like Boris, who at least had the excuse of attending Brexit transition meetings, Sturgeon also missed COBRA meetings about the pandemic. In fact, she missed six of them. This came from one of the Scottish papers:
England and Wales effectively re-opened by early July, although with masks, social distancing and some visiting restrictions in place. Scotland lagged behind.
Already on July 10, it was becoming clear that Scotland’s coronavirus policies were not working, as Tom Harwood wrote in The Telegraph:
Looking at Nicola Sturgeon’s polling popularity it’s easy to forget that the Scottish First Minister presided over a care home coronavirus death rate double that of England. It’s easy to miss the fact that Scotland has been significantly behind England when it comes to the rate of testing too. As Labour’s Shadow Scottish Secretary Ian Murray told a private zoom meeting at the end of May, “all of these things in Scotland are in a lot of instances worse than what’s happening in England but Boris gets the blame and not Nicola Sturgeon.”
How then has she managed to get away with it all so unscathed?
One answer is simple. The Westminster media bubble is so often so busy naval gazing that politicians elsewhere in the country escape the scrutiny placed on No 10. Few in the Westminster village are concerned with what’s going on 400 miles north in Holyrood. This obviously allows much Scottish scandal to slide under the radar when it comes to national attention. But this explanation is to downplay the cunning strategy of the SNP Government, and its not so secret weapon. Nationalism.
Sure enough, on July 12, Sturgeon announced she was considering a mandatory quarantine of all English visitors to Scotland. Guido has the video:
On July 23, The Spectator published ‘Nicola Sturgeon’s care homes catastrophe’:
Nicola Sturgeon is fond of telling Scots that the prevalence of Covid-19 is ‘five times lower’ in Scotland than in England. Or at least she was, until the Office for Statistics Regulation released a statement calling her data source ‘unclear’ and adding that ‘we do not yet have evidence to support the validity of these comparisons’. The SNP has been retailing the notion that Sturgeon’s response to the pandemic far outstrips that of Boris Johnson. The public may be on her side, but the facts are not.
… In England and Wales, deaths in care homes have accounted for 28 per cent of all fatalities involving coronavirus. In Scotland, the figure is 47 per cent. English and Welsh homes have lost 3.7 per cent of their residents to the virus while homes in Scotland have lost 5.6 per cent. This is all the more remarkable since the care home population south of the border is almost 12 times the size of that in Scotland.
One explanation is the SNP government’s hive-like mentality. Dissenting views were pushed aside or ignored altogether …
Far from supplying an exemplar for others to follow, the Scottish Government has demonstrated the consequences of wrong-headed policy-making, spurning of expert counsel, and a failure to be transparent. The case for a public inquiry into what went wrong in Scotland’s care homes, and in the decision-making at the top of government, is surely undeniable. With Covid-19 apparently under control at present, now is the optimal time to review policies and processes in case a second wave is looming down the line.
On July 31, Sturgeon announced a travel ban between Scotland and the north west of England:
She announced on the BBC:
I am today advising, strongly advising, people in Scotland to avoid travel to the areas affected in England… and also to ask people from these areas from these areas not to travel to Scotland.
Guido noted:
1,892 years on, Hadrian would be delighted she’s picking up where he left off…
On August 5, Sturgeon effectively locked down the City of Aberdeen, although she did allow people to go to work and educational institutions. According to one person, this was because one bar was not following the rules:
On October 1, Sturgeon was slow to act on then-SNP MP Margaret Ferrier (now an Independent), who travelled by train from London to Scotland and back again, even though she knew she had the virus. By the time this appeared, Ian Blackford had suspended the whip:
The whole of the UK knew about Margaret Ferrier, who remains an Independent to this day. People were angry:
On October 7, Sturgeon announced a semi-lockdown, although she said schools would remain open and adults could leave the house:
On October 11, Sturgeon’s government was failing to use its full testing capacity. It was only using half:
While hospitality establishments in England and Wales had been serving alcohol indoors since the summer and, later in 2020, with food only, Scotland opted to ban strong drink altogether until October 27 that year. Devi Sridhar probably played a role in that, too:
On November 23, Sturgeon closed the Scottish border to the rest of the UK.
Guido told us:
This weekend, in what must have been a dream come true to nationalists, Scotland closed its border to the rest of the UK. The move came as the most densely populated parts of Scotland moved into ‘Tier 4’ – lockdown in all but name. It is currently illegal for anyone from the rest of the UK to enter the country without a reasonable excuse. Scots are also forbidden from traveling to other parts of the UK. A dream come true for the more extreme SNP supporters.
People who enter or leave Scotland illegally are now being hit with £60 fines. Travel within Scotland is also restricted, with those living in Nicola’s Tier 3 or 4 areas prohibited from leaving their local authority without a reasonable excuse. Guido gets the feeling some political tribes are secretly enjoying this pandemic…
On December 17, Sturgeon got stroppy with the Scottish Mail‘s political editor Mike Blackley for asking whether the self-isolation time could be cut, as was planned in the rest of the UK.
Sturgeon shot back:
Yeah, because that’d really help ’cause that would spread infections even further and that would not be doing any favours to businesses.
Guido has the video:
On December 22, Sturgeon was photographed maskless chatting to two women at a pub. They did not have masks, either, but at least they were eating, so had an excuse. Sturgeon apologised only because she was sorry she got caught:
The story caused quite a stir:
The following day, Sturgeon apologised in Holyrood:
She said she was kicking herself harder than her worst critic would:
The author of the Scottish blog Lily of St Leonards pointed out the hypocrisy not only of the mask violation but, more importantly, Sturgeon’s criticism of Boris’s continuation of Brexit negotiations:
Sturgeon is not merely a hypocrite about masks, she is also a hypocrite about transition periods.
Imagine if Sturgeon had been given her wish and there had been an independence referendum in 2018 and she had won it. There would have been a transition period. Let’s say it was due to end in March 2020. Scottish Independence Day would have been April the First. Would Sturgeon have really extended the transition period because of the Covid outbreak? But what if she had extended it and Scotland had continued to receive money from the Treasury? When would the transition period end? When we no longer needed the money? It’s another word for never.
While condemning the British Government for not extending the transition period with the EU due to Covid, Sturgeon is still planning an independence referendum for 2021. If we must extend the transition period because of Covid, why does she suppose it is sensible to have a referendum on breaking up Britain? We have had four years to prepare for leaving the EU. Sturgeon doesn’t even have a plan for independence that takes into account the economic damage of 2020.
Brexit is massively easier to achieve than Scottish separatism. It doesn’t involve setting up a new state. It merely involves us returning to what we had been for centuries until the early 1970s.
The winter saw a resumption of semi-lockdowns throughout the UK, in England as well as in the devolved nations.
Schools had to close just as pupils and students returned from Chrismas holidays in January.
It was thought that President Trump, having lost to Joe Biden, would be taking a golfing trip in Scotland in order to avoid handing over the presidency to him. Sturgeon put her foot down.
On January 5, NPR reported:
Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon says President Trump wouldn’t be allowed to visit Scotland to golf during its pandemic lockdown, responding to speculation that Trump might travel to a Scottish golf resort rather than attend President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
“We are not allowing people to come in to Scotland without an essential purpose right now and that would apply to him, just as it applies to anybody else,” Sturgeon said after being asked about Trump on Tuesday. “Coming to play golf is not what I would consider to be an essential purpose.”
Sturgeon was responding to questions spurred by a report in the Scottish newspaper The Sunday Post, which cited a source at Prestwick Airport as saying the facility has been told a U.S. military Boeing 757 aircraft will arrive on Jan. 19, the day before Trump’s term expires and Biden is inaugurated …
As for the chance that Trump might use an international trip to one of his golf resorts to avoid the handover of power, Sturgeon said she has not been told of any of Trump’s travel plans.
In the event, the whole world knows that Trump stayed in Washington …
Also on January 5, Scotland had not decreased the required number of days for self-isolation, as Guido reminded us:
On 22nd December, England’s Covid rules changed so infected individuals can stop isolating after seven days rather than ten, so long as they test negative on day six and seven. Six days ago Wales followed suit, and a day later Northern Ireland copied the change. Leaving one obvious outlier…
It now looks like Sturgeon will confirm the cut, with a statement expected later today and her deputy John Swinney saying yesterday that their administration is “actively considering” reducing the self-isolation period.
Meanwhile, the vaccine rollout began.
On January 28, The Mail reported that Sturgeon sided with the EU in saying that the UK had too many vaccine doses and the EU too few:
Nicola Sturgeon was accused of taking the EU’s side in the bitter vaccine row today as she vowed to publish details of the UK’s supplies despite Boris Johnson ordering her to keep them secret.
In an extraordinary move, the First Minister risked undermining Britain’s position, with Brussels heaping pressure on firms to give the bloc a bigger share of the stocks.
Despite the PM warning that the information must be confidential to protect the rollout, Ms Sturgeon told Holyrood she will release it from next week ‘regardless of what they say’.
The timing of Ms Sturgeon’s intervention was particularly provocative given that it came as Mr Johnson was on an official visit to Scotland to make the case for the Union.
Tory MPs vented fury at Ms Sturgeon – who wants Scotland to be independent and rejoin the bloc – saying she is ‘obviously more inclined to help the EU than she is the UK’.
Tory MP Peter Bone told MailOnline: ‘The simple truth is she has a tendency to support the EU rather than the United Kingdom.
‘It is wrong, her behaviour. I would have thought she would praise the success of the UK because Scotland shares in that. If she was in the EU and not part of the UK she would still be waiting for her vaccines. Get behind the UK government and stop playing petty politics.’
The row erupted as tensions between Britain and Brussels over vaccine supplies escalated again as the EU warned drug companies it will use all legal means to block the export of jabs from the continent unless manufacturers deliver the shots they have promised.
The EU’s vaccination rollout continues to lag far behind the UK’s, with the bloc now desperately scrambling to boost supplies – but deliveries have slowed due to production problems.
Brussels has publicly slammed AstraZeneca for failing to deliver on its contract with the bloc and has even asked the firm to divert jabs from Britain.
Now it has emerged that European Council President Charles Michel has said in a letter to four EU leaders that the EU should explore legal means to ensure it receives the jabs it has bought.
On March 9, the Scottish Sun reported that Sturgeon was relaxing social gatherings — provided they were small, outdoors and close to home:
NICOLA Sturgeon has confirmed plans to allow four adults from two households to meet outdoors from Friday.
The First Minister also revealed older children can mix again in groups …
“And, in addition, we will make clear in our guidance that this will allow for social and recreational purposes, as well as essential exercise.
“Meeting will be possible in any outdoor space, including private gardens.
“But please, do stick to the new rules. Gatherings must be a maximum of four people, from two households. And you should only go indoors if that is essential in order to reach a back garden, or to use the toilet.
“And, for now, please stay as close to home as possible.
“We hope to be in a position to relax – at least to some extent – travel restrictions within Scotland in the weeks ahead, but it is not safe to do so just yet.”
By April 2021, with the UK’s schools still closed, Sturgeon was planning a phased re-opening in Scotland. In 2020, there were problems in marking exams with so much of the school year out the window. To be fair, other UK nations implemented similar policies with similar disastrous results. In 2021, Sturgeon stipulated that no exams were to be set. Understandable, but teachers needed some sort of assessment for pupils and came up with something called the Alternative Certification Model, which allowed teachers to mark pupils on what they observed in class. Sturgeon did not like the proposal and offered no alternative solution, leaving head teachers to come up with their own plans while trying to avoid the word ‘exam’:
At that time, booze and most hospitality was once again off the menu. Although Sturgeon followed Wales’s Prif Weinidog (First Minister) in relaxing some restrictions, hospitality was not one of them:
This was less than a month before local and national elections (for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) took place.
On April 13, Guido Fawkes noted that Scottish hospitality was suffering badly (red emphases his):
Sadly for Scotland’s hospitality sector, Guido’s tip-off that the Scottish government was to bring forward its unlocking of hospitality didn’t materialise. Last night, Scotland’s hospitality sector was warning the two-week lag north of the border would cost up to £20 million…
While Sturgeon often boasted at her televised briefings that Scotland had the best plan and the lowest infection rate as a result, it turned out that she was wrong.
On April 30, Guido posted that Scotland had the highest infection rates per capita in the UK:
Guido told us:
Statistics from the ONS this afternoon reveal Scotland is lagging significantly behind England, Wales and Northern Ireland in their Covid prevalence rate. Wales has the lowest rates by far, with one case per 1,570; followed by England’s 1,010; and Northern Ireland’s 940. Scotland, however, is well behind the rest of the country’s progress, at one in every 640. Sturgeon’s so-called ‘good pandemic’ has always been a smokescreen of spin, rather than epidemiological success…
On May 21, Sturgeon forgot to be politically correct and call the Indian variant by another name:
Guido observed:
A rule which apparently never applied to the Kent variant in the first place…
The Spectator thought along the same lines:
… newly appointed health secretary Hamza Yousaf was on hand to claim that ‘a reason why we are calling it the April-02’ variant is because it is ‘important for us not to allow this virus to divide us as communities and people.’
Clearly the SNP feel no such qualms about doing so with the people of Kent.
On May 27, Boris’s former adviser Dominic Cummings explained to a parliamentary select committee how Sturgeon sabotaged UK-wide coronavirus COBRA meetings.
Nicola Sturgeon undermined the UK’s four-nations approach to tackling the coronavirus crisis by “babbling” about high-level meetings, Dominic Cummings has claimed.
Boris Johnson’s former senior adviser accused the first minister of undermining meetings of Cobra, the disasters committee, by announcing the outcome of discussions at media briefings.
Sturgeon held her televised briefings daily at 12.15pm during the pandemic, so they were often directly after a UK-wide crisis meeting.
Cummings told the Westminster science and technology committee and health and social care committee that the online Cobra meetings became shams because other participants feared what Sturgeon would say on TV. This resulted in decisions not being made because of distrust, he added.
“The last Cobra meeting I can even remember downstairs in the Cobra room was essentially a Potemkin [fake] meeting because it was with the DAs [devolved administrations] and what happened was, as soon as we had these meetings, Nicola Sturgeon would just go straight out and announce what she wanted,” Cummings said.
“So you had these completely Potemkin meetings without anyone actually digging into the reality in detail, because everybody thought, as soon as the meeting is finished, everyone’s going to just pop up on TV and start babbling.”
On June 1, Sturgeon said that the scheduled reopening of Scotland could be delayed because not enough people had been vaccinated. Once these people get hold of maximum control, they don’t give it up easily:
On June 9, Sturgeon backed out of a Scotland-specific coronavirus inquiry, as did Mark Drakeford for Wales. A UK-wide inquiry would go ahead instead:
Guido pointed out that the SNP’s May 2021 local/devolved election manifesto had promised one (because of the high rates of care home deaths):
Both Mark Drakeford and Nicola Sturgeon are facing backlash after seemingly cowering out of conducting their own, nation-specific Covid inquiries. Despite it being in the SNP manifesto, Sturgeon is now being warned not to break the pledge after backtracking away from the commitment. The SNP manifesto promised a Scotland-specific inquiry “as soon as possible after the election”, however the first minister’s spokesman told the press on Sunday that the government “was yet to decide whether Scotland needed an inquiry at all, insisting she would first wait to see the terms of reference of a proposed UK-wide probe instead.” As slippery as a Sturgeon…
In Wales, Mark Drakeford didn’t commit to an inquiry in his election manifesto, and is sticking to his refusal. Being pressed during first minister’s questions yesterday, he told Tory leader Andrew RT Davies that the UK-wide inquiry being set up by the PM would be sufficient.
On June 29, Sturgeon had another travel ban in place between Scotland and the north west of England. Manchester’s mayor Andy Burnham forced her to overturn it. She never consulted him on the matter.
Burnham called the ban hypocritical:
Guido explained:
… Health secretary Humza Yousaf confirmed in Holyrood today that the ban between Scotland and Manchester, Bolton and Salford will lift tomorrow. Sturgeon brought in the ban without approaching Burnham and without consultation. Mad with power…
Yousaf claims the restrictions are being removed “due to changes in the epidemiological position for those areas.” The ban on travel between Scotland and Blackburn will remain in place, however. Guido imagines locals in Blackburn won’t be too keen to travel to Scotland anyhow, given it’s experiencing its largest Covid wave since the start of the pandemic…
On August 3, Sturgeon began lifting restrictions throughout Scotland. However, as Guido reported, some would stay in place for quite a while:
… the “number of mitigation measures” include
-
- Mask mandates which Sturgeon expects will ‘likely (…) be mandated in law for some time to come.”
- An ongoing requirement for indoor hospitality venues to collect the contact details of customers.
Sturgeon added:
It is important to be clear that it does not signal the end of the pandemic or a return to life exactly as we knew it before Covid struck.
On August 25, Sturgeon announced that Scotland would be conducting its own coronavirus inquiry, independent of the UK-wide one. A change of heart from what she said earlier.
Nicola Sturgeon has said Scotland will launch its own judge-led public inquiry into the handling of the pandemic by the end of the year …
One of its central aims will be to investigate “events causing public concern” — specifically the excessive death rate in Scottish care homes.
Sturgeon and Jeane Freeman, the former health secretary, have both admitted that discharging 1,300 elderly people from hospitals into care homes without robust testing at the start of the pandemic had been a mistake. More than 3,000 people died in care homes, a third of all the deaths in Scotland …
Sturgeon said the Scottish government would continue to liaise with the UK government about its own inquiry.
Did that ever take place? I don’t know. Certainly, no questions that I’ve heard have been asked in Holyrood.
Eventually, Scotland re-opened, long after England and some time after Wales.
Conclusion
From this litany of errors, including nationalism, hypocrisy and power-grabbing, we can see that Nicola Sturgeon was — and is — no saint.
More to follow on her other mistakes next week.
Last Friday’s post was about the friction between the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and the then-Duke and Duchess of Cambridge but also Palace staff. (You can read my first post on them here.)
There were other signs that the Sussexes were a rather unusual Royal couple, which might have tainted the public’s opinion of them.
Political ambitions
Just days after their wedding in May 2018, Sebastian Shakespeare wrote an article for the Mail, ‘Why Meghan Markle for President isn’t crazy’ (emphases mine):
Meghan Markle is said to have told a former close associate that her ultimate ambition is to be president of the U.S. The conversation apparently took place after Meghan began her romance with Prince Harry.
‘Meghan was quite clear that she wanted to be president one day,’ the source claims.
It may sound fanciful, but the new Duchess of Sussex has held the ambition since she was a little girl. In 2015, she reportedly told the journalist Piers Morgan that she had not always sought showbusiness success.
‘As a kid, I wanted to be either the president or a news broadcaster like you,’ she told him …
And the claim appears to have caused consternation at Kensington Palace yesterday, with the Duchess giving her official spokesman permission to take the unusual step of issuing a public denial.
‘This conversation you describe with an associate is fictitious,’ the spokesman insisted.
I am, though, not the only one to hear rumours that Meghan still holds political ambitions.
Former Times editor Sir Simon Jenkins says: ‘Her friends and associates affirm that she is a political animal.
‘Such is her fame, she could perfectly well follow a route taken by a certain Ronald Reagan. She might lead for the Democrats against a Republican Ivanka Trump. All I can say is, why not?’
On November 17, 2018, the Duchess practised interfaith outreach in an official visit to a mosque near Kensington Palace:
PJ Media reported on the visit a week later, taking their source from The Telegraph:
In yet another shocking failure in a long line of interfaith outreach by Western governments since 9/11, The Daily Telegraph reports today that the American-born Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, has been recently promoting a program associated with the notorious Al-Manaar mosque not far from Kensington Palace. The mosque has produced as many as nineteen terrorists — including “Jihadi John” and his Islamic State “Beatles” who tortured and beheaded Western captives in Syria.
The duchess has helped raise more than $250,000 for the Hubb Community Kitchen operated out of the mosque by promoting a cookbook that royal press agents have billed as celebrating “the power of cooking to bring communities together” …
The Grenfell Tower fire had taken place in June 2017, one of the worst blazes in London in decades. It is still spoken of today. Much community rebuilding had to be done, so one can understand that, but, according to The Telegraph, the Duchess had made earlier, ‘secret visits’ to the mosque:
In February it emerged the 37-year-old royal had made secret visits to the mosque in Westbourne Grove, which has also hosted Princes William and Harry, Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn in recent months.
An investigation by the Henry Jackson Society (HJS), the anti-extremism think tank, has linked the mosque, opened by Prince Charles in 2001, to 19 jihadists, including Islamic State executioner Mohammed Emwazi, also known as Jihadi John.
Research by the HJS suggests the mosque was once attended by three of the four “Beatles”, the Isil terror cell charged with guarding, torturing and killing hostages in Syria and Iraq. As well as Emwazi, Choukri Ellekhlifi, Alexanda Kotey and Aine Davis, all from west London, also have links with Al Manaar.
PJ Media pointed out that ITV News had also picked up on the Duchess’s prior visits:
An ITV News report earlier this week reported that the duchess has made numerous unreported visits to the notorious mosque in recent months:
Also:
The Sun reported last night that Kensington Palace was trying to distance Markle from the mosque, claiming that the community kitchen housed in the mosque is an independent project.
But this does raise questions about how royal officials decided to promote an effort so closely tied to the Al-Mannar mosque when reports going back to 2014 chronicled the role that the mosque played in the radicalization of “Jihadi John” and the ISIS “Beatles.”
The move to Frogmore Cottage: strain with the Cambridges
As my post from Friday says, by the time the wedding took place, many Palace staff as well as the Cambridges saw too much tension and outbursts involving the new Duke and Duchess of Sussex. It could no longer be contained.
On November 23, 2018, The Sun reported that the Sussexes were leaving Kensington Palace for the 10-bedroom Frogmore Cottage in the grounds of the Windsor estate:
The brothers have always been incredibly close, but Harry and Meghan are setting up their home in the grounds of Windsor Castle.
The Queen has given them Frogmore Cottage, which is having a multi-million pound refit paid for by the taxpayer.
It will provide ten bedrooms and a nursery for their baby, due in April. The couple are expected to move in next year.
A royal source said: “The initial plan was for Harry and Meghan to move out of their cottage in the grounds of Kensington Palace and into one of the main apartments.
“But there has been a bit of tension between the brothers.
“Now Harry and Meghan don’t want to live next to William and Kate and want to strike out on their own.”
The cosy cottage the pair currently live in as previously home to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge before the couple moved into a 20-room apartment inside the palace.
“They need more room and hope Frogmore Cottage will be ready in time for when they have the baby.”
Frogmore Cottage needs major building work to turn it back into a luxury family home, boasting 10 bedrooms & a new nursery plus space for a gym & yoga studio.
Currently it’s been chopped up into 5 units where palace staff have been living.
News of Meghan and Harry’s decision to leave Kensington Palace comes weeks after it was first reported that Harry and William would have separate courts in the future instead of using Kensington Palace as a joint office for them.
Nearly a year later, on August 27, 2019, The Sun reported that the Sussexes actually wanted to live in Windsor Castle, but the Queen said no:
MEGHAN Markle and Prince Harry wanted to move in with his grandparents and set up home in Windsor Castle, reports say.
It’s claimed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex asked the Queen if living quarters in the historic castle could be made available for them after they were married but the answer was a firm ‘no’, so they went on to renovate Frogmore Cottage in the grounds of the estate …
The original castle in Berkshire dates back to the 11th century when construction was started following the Norman invasion of England by William the Conqueror.
Since the time of Henry I it has been used by the reigning monarch.
Henry III built a luxurious royal palace within the castle during the middle of the 13th century which were later expanded upon by Edward III.
Frogmore Cottage, in the grounds of Frogmore House on the royal estate, was built in 1801.
On Christmas Day 2018, The Sun reported that all seemed to be well between the Duchesses of Cambridge and Sussex at Sandringham:
MEGHAN Markle placed a hand on Kate Middleton’s back in a show of unity as they today brushed aside rumours of a rift for a Christmas Day church service.
The sisters-in-law were all smiles as they joined the royal family at Sandringham for the annual service this morning.
And Meghan and Kate brushed off feud rumours as the former actress placed a hand on the Duchess of Cambridge’s back as they appeared to share a joke.
The pregnant Duchess of Sussex looked radiant in a navy £2,250 Victoria Beckham coat with £1,350 black boots as she held tightly to Prince Harry’s arm.
The Duchess of Cambridge, who wore a £3,000 red Catherine Walker coat and £650 burgundy “Halo Band” made by milliner Jane Taylor, walked apart from Prince William.
Kate teamed the festive look with matching gloves and a clutch bag, while the Queen was vibrant in a grey feathered hat and jacket with a bright pink trim.
Three weeks later, in January 2019, royal reporters were none the wiser about whether a feud was actually taking place.
On January 17 that year, The Daily Caller reported:
According to new reports by royal insiders Katie Nicholl and Leslie Carroll, the Duchesses may not be as at odds as we were previously led to believe.
Contrary to mainstream narratives pushed over the past several weeks, Markle and Middleton may not be feuding as much as just feeling each other out.
“When [Prince] Harry met Meghan [as] the relationship was progressing, he was really keen to get Kate’s stamp of approval,” Nicholl tells ETOnline. “He wanted them to be close as sisters-in-law. I think they’re still in an early stage of their relationship.”
And while there very well could be some jealousy, that doesn’t necessarily equate hard feelings.
“Possibly, Kate does feel a little eclipsed by Meghan, who’s just come along to such huge media interests, public interests and being so successful from the start,” Nicholl added.
Of course, Harry and Meghan’s decision to move out of Kensington Palace this year — a rare decision for the Royal Family, who usually resides together at the palace during most of the year — fanned the flames of a rumored feud. It didn’t help that a report that Middleton left a meeting with Markle in tears before her May wedding quickly dominated headlines for weeks …
For what it’s worth, Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty Magazine, isn’t buying the candy-coated reporting.
“People forget Meghan is an LA girl,” Seward suggested. “It’s very different for her to suddenly come here and marry into the royal family…I think Meghan thought she had an ally in Kate…Kate was pregnant and unwell. And then she had a new baby. So she couldn’t give Meghan the attention she expected. And I think that’s when things started to sour.”
So is it a case of misunderstanding? Or did the two women get off on the wrong foot? We’ll have to wait and see…
On February 5, The Daily Caller told its readers that it was Princes Harry and William who were allegedly feuding, not their wives:
Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton’s alleged feud is reportedly really between Prince Harry and Prince William after the eldest offered some “brotherly advice.”
It reportedly happened when Prince William shared that he was “quite concerned that the relationship [with the Duchess of Sussex] has moved so quickly,” Katie Nicholl said in a clip from TLC’s “Kate v. Meghan: Princesses at War,” per E! News Monday.
And that “‘You know, this seems to be moving quickly. Are you sure?’ And I think what was meant as well-intended brotherly advice, just riled Harry,” she added.
That advice reportedly translated to Harry that William wasn’t behind his decision to marry Meghan Markle.
Nicholl continued, “Harry is hugely protective of Meghan. He saw that as criticism. He interpreted that as his brother not really being behind this marriage. And I don’t think things have been quite right ever since.”
However, royal biographer Lady Colin Campbell explained that the alleged distance between the brothers is all about Markle’s influence on her husband.
“Everything I hear is that Harry is completely beguiled by Meghan, and completely enthralled to her and has changed considerably,” Lady Campbell shared.
Baby Archie
On March 4, 2019, Gateway Pundit‘s Niall McCrae didn’t sit on the fence when discussing the Duchess of Sussex’s baby shower:
Keep your seatbelts on, folks. According to Vanity Fair, Meghan revealed at her baby shower that her imminently expected will be raised as a gender-fluid child. Of course, this was denied by Buckingham Palace. But nobody would be surprised if this progressive princess, supported by her widely popular and slightly wild husband Harry, fully meant what she allegedly said.
It was predictable from the outset that Meghan would be a wrong ‘un (should anyone imply such inference, I attribute none of this to her ethnicity or American nationality, which freshen the Windsorhood). She is the epitome of the self-righteous, virtue-signalling, celebrity social justice warrior. Narcissistic Meghan wants to emulate and exceed Diana, and ensure that in future movies she will be not the actress but the actual heroine.
Never being a fan of Diana, my response to her untimely death in 1997 was coolly detached as I saw all those flowers, all those personal messages from people who never met her. However, Diana obviously fulfilled a need in society, and the outpouring of grief after the tragedy marked a turning point in British culture, from the traditional stiff upper lip to open emoting. As Tony Blair said when taking office earlier that year, ‘A new dawn has broken, has it not?’
We all wish Meghan and Harry a healthy and happy child. A boy is rumored, and perhaps that explains the gender fluidity. As a devout feminist, Meghan would probably be less keen on undermining the sex of a daughter: instead, she would be raised a strong female, preparing to right the wrongs of the patriarchal world.
On Monday, May 6, The Independent reported on ancient rules regarding royal custody of grandchildren. Keep in mind that this now pertains to King Charles:
… there is a fascinating law in place that means that Prince Harry and Meghan may not always have full legal custody of their child.
More than three centuries ago, a law was enacted that means the sovereign has full legal custody of their minor grandchildren, royal expert Marlene Koenig explains.
The law, called “The Grand Opinion for the Prerogative Concerning the Royal Family,” was introduced by King George I in 1717.
“George I did not get along with his son, the future George II,” Koenig tells The Independent.
“I believe it came about when the Prince of Wales [George II] did not want to have the godparent for his son that his father wanted – so George I got Parliament to come up with something.”
This means that when Charles, Prince of Wales becomes sovereign, he will have custody of his minor grandchildren.
According to Koenig, issues surrounding the law arose in 1994 when Diana, Princess of Wales separated from Prince Charles.
Diana expressed wishes to take their sons, Harry and William, to live with her in Australia, but couldn’t due to the regulations laid out by the custody law …
Hmmm …
CNN tries to trap Trump on Markle
On June 1, CNN tried to trap President Trump into saying that the Duchess was ‘nasty’. Instead, he said (29-second point in the video):
No, I didn’t know that she was nasty.
Here’s the full exchange:
Another Twitter user, since deleted, observed — nearly correctly:
List of women Trump has used the word “nasty” to describe: -Hillary Clinton -Nancy Pelosi -Meghan Markle -Kamala Harris -San Juan mayor -Danish prime minister.
August 2019: the turning point
Valentine Low, the author of 2022’s best-seller Courtiers, tells us that, by August 2019, things were unravelling quickly for the Sussexes, who already had a US PR team lined up:
By August 2019, things were “awful and tense” within the Sussex household. There were also clues that Harry and Meghan did not see their long-term future as working members of the royal family. Their Africa tour was coming up, but there was nothing in the diary after that. Meanwhile, staff were increasingly aware of the presence in the background of Meghan’s business manager, Andrew Meyer, and her lawyer, Rick Genow, as well as her agent, Nick Collins, and Keleigh Thomas Morgan of Sunshine Sachs. The US team had been very busy, working on deals not only with Netflix but also a deal for Harry’s mental health series for Apple+ with Oprah Winfrey and Meghan’s voiceover for a Disney film about elephants.
The most the public knew at the time was that the Queen had arranged for the couple to go on a tour of Africa, as part of a goodwill sign towards the Commonwealth countries there:
While preparing for the Africa tour, the team was trying to persuade the couple that it would be appropriate to do an interview with the British media. Sam Cohen suggested Tom Bradby of ITV, who already had a relationship with Harry. Meghan was reluctant at first. Her attention was focused on the prospect of doing an interview with Oprah Winfrey. After thinking about it, however, Harry said they would agree. There was one proviso: he and Meghan could not do interviews together or be in the same shot. That would go against their deal with Oprah, which at that point was slated for the autumn of that year. (It eventually went ahead more than a year later, in March 2021.)
The Express was on to the Sussexes at that time.
On Saturday, July 28, the paper reported that the Sussexes’ job vacancies were no longer on the Clarence House recruitment site:
The American and the Duke of Sussex are no longer listed on the recruitment page of Prince Harry’s father Prince Charles’ website. Prince William and wife Kate however, remain there. One family friend said of Harry: “He wants to control everything and everyone he’s involved with. How he’s going to pay for it is another question.”
Under the recruitment tab of the Clarence House website vacancies are listed for staff keen to work for Charles and Camilla and the Cambridges.
Regardless of there being any vacancies available, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were listed at the top of the site, along with Charles, Camilla, William and Kate.
The couple are no longer there.
The suspicion the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have now split from Prince Charles on his website also raises questions about funding.
The costs of Harry’s office and his royal duties are met by a stipend from the Prince of Wales.
Between them Harry and William share about £4million a year, with the lion’s share going to the direct heir to the throne.
But without his father’s support, Harry would have to turn to the Queen for funding – and she already has a lengthy list of people to support.
… Meghan and Kate seemed to have patched up their differences with a visit to Wimbledon this summer.
But Meghan and Harry aides sparked outrage when it emerged there were rules on how to approach them in Windsor.
The Sun reports neighbours are advised against initiating conversations with the couple.
However, if Meghan or Harry start a discussion they are welcome to exchange pleasantries with the young couple.
They are also asked not to play with the couples’ dogs or request to see their baby, the report claims.
On Thursday, August 1, The Express had a follow-up article:
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry made big changes in their lives during recent months as they simultaneously became parents for the first time. The royal couple split from their charity partnership with Prince William and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge in January. Three months later it was announced Prince Harry would team up with US talk show legend Oprah Winfrey on a new TV series about mental health.
This was followed by the birth of their first son Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor on May 6, 2019.
Since then, Meghan and Harry have planned a forthcoming royal visit to South Africa in autumn.
They also raised eyebrows after citing their intention to raise Archie as a “private citizen” despite him being seventh-in-line to the throne.
The royal baby lives with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex at their Windsor Estate home where they can maintain strict privacy …
Her mum, Doria Ragland, lives in Los Angeles where she is a yoga instructor.
Doria has crossed the pond to visit her daughter and grandson but a royal expert has now revealed Meghan may be looking to set up house over there.
Emily Andrews told Yahoo’s The Royal Box the Duke and Duchess of Sussex may well purchase a property in the USA for work and personal reasons …
The royal expert did not suggest that any purchase would mean a permanent move to the United States …
She and Harry are expected to travel to the Queen’s official Scottish residence, Balmoral Castle, along with other senior royals this summer.
The idyllic holiday home becomes the Queen’s two-month break from royal duties every July and August.
Vogue
On August 2, Meghan’s issue of Vogue that she had guest-edited appeared on the shelves.
The Spectator rightly objected to the Duchess’s perceptions of life. She appears to think that it’s not what you do that matters, it’s what you look like that counts. Look at Harry in the photo — a completely different person:
The issue featured the Duchess’s supposed heroines.
Author and journalist Douglas Murray wrote about it for UnHerd — ‘Meghan and Harry are playing a dangerous game’:
… Meghan Markle, otherwise known as the Duchess of Sussex, has guest-edited the September edition of Vogue. The contents of the issue are perhaps unsurprising. As well as inevitably celebrating prominent women, such as the teenaged school truant Greta Thunberg, the Duchess has also set out to prove that women don’t need men to give them status. Something she has done by including an interview with her husband, Prince Harry.
This in itself has drawn a certain amount of comment, and will not have calmed fears some people had that a highly political figure marrying into the nation’s most necessarily non-politically opinionated family might cause problems down the line. The fact that Meghan Markle’s pre-Harry politics might be best described as ‘woke’ is in some ways unimportant – a prominent Donald Trump-supporting Republican marrying into the Royal Family would raise similar concerns, to say the least.
The worry was that Prince Harry’s marriage to Ms Markle would end up tipping him towards her political path, fears that will not have been calmed by his appearance in the high-end fashion magazine. In the royally-guest-edited issue, Prince Harry talks about a number of things, the headline-grabber being his claim that he and his wife would not have more than two children because of its impact on the environment and climate change …
It is the Prince’s follow-up comments, however, that dish up the problem, less for his audience than for the Prince himself. Watching Prince Harry beginning to play the game of identifying ‘unconscious bias’ is like gazing at a hapless amateur juggling with loaded pistols; it is enough to make any well-disposed person want to scream “Stop” and seize the guns from his unsuspecting hands.
The comments appear in a conversation between the Prince and primatologist Dr Jane Goodall, on the subject of what humans can learn from chimpanzees. At one point Dr Goodall says that children do not notice skin colour, to which Harry adds: “But again, just as stigma is handed down from generation to generation, your perspective on the world and on life and on people is something that is taught to you. It’s learned from your family, learned from the older generation, or from advertising, from your environment.” Well perhaps …
One of the most extreme forms of – generally unconscious – bias that people demonstrate throughout their lives is towards attractive people, and not only in the selection of partners. Study after study shows that good-looking men and women stand a better chance of promotion in their chosen field of work than people who are average-looking or actively unattractive.
For instance, it may be carefully suggested that the editor of September’s issue of Vogue would not be editing September’s edition of Vogue if, rather than the acclaimed beauty she is, she looked rather more like a member of the Addams family. Or indeed an average-looking member of the general public. There may be many reasons why Prince Harry requested Meghan Markle’s hand in marriage, but her looks must have – consciously or otherwise – at least counted in her favour on the way to the altar.
Another form of bias that people express throughout their lives – again, consciously or otherwise – might be an inclination towards someone who is financially or socially secure. I should never want to accuse a Duchess – or any other member of the Royal Family – of any variety of bias. And yet it seems possible that in her search for a husband Ms Markle may have demonstrated some form of bias (unconscious or otherwise) towards thrones and their heirs. I will put the point no stronger. But in her search for love, Ms Markle must have met many people. Perhaps she met many princes and mingled with many a duke. But it is striking, at the very least, that of all the people who appeared across her path, the one she ended up marrying in a low-key ceremony at Windsor Castle happened to be the second son of the Prince of Wales.
Balmoral no-show — part 1
It was a given that the Royals joined the Queen during her summer holiday at Balmoral and participated in her favourite country pursuits.
However, the Duchess was fussy.
On August 11, The Sun reported:
MEGHAN Markle might fake a headache to avoid taking part in blood sports when she visits the Queen in Balmoral, a royal expert has claimed.
Sports like hunting and fly fishing are much-loved group activities at the Queen’s summer retreat in the Scottish highlands.
With a 50,000 acre estate comprising of grouse moors, forestry and farmland, animals to hunt are in no short supply in Balmoral.
But the Duchess of Sussex, 38, who follows a vegan diet during the week, isn’t a fan of hunting – despite her husband Prince Harry being taught from a young age.
Writing for the Mail on Sunday, royal editor Robert Jobson said: “Meghan, however, who rather disapproves of such blood sports, may choose to feign a headache.”
BBQs and picnics are thought to take place daily at Balmoral, regardless of the Scottish weather, as the royals are so fond of all things outdoorsy.
“It is hunting which is perhaps the biggest passion”, Robert added of the royal hobby, which includes shooting birds and deer.
“Her Majesty shot her last stag in 1983 near to the Spittal of Glenmuick, in a spot that is now called The Queen’s Corry.
“But she still attends shoots and drove Kate to a grouse shoot when the couple visited a couple of years ago.”
This I did not know. Wow:
The Queen was taught to stalk deer by her late cousin, and best friend, Margaret Rhodes.
Returning now to Meghan:
Earlier this week, a source told Fabulous pescatarian Meghan would try fly fishing to appease her father-in-law Prince Charles.
They added: “But there will no softening on Meghan’s stance against hunting, any stag or deer hunting fills her with horror.
“Venison will not be one of her menu choices for sure.”
However, the Queen was also fussy. And, after all, Balmoral was her estate.
Five days later, on August 16, The Sun told us that Her Majesty despised ripped jeans and wedge heels. Meghan loves both:
It has been reported that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will make their first trip to the Scottish castle this summer, but the Queen has her firm views on correct attire.
Speaking to Fabulous Digital, the source said: “The Queen is no favourite of jeans so the US boyfriend look and ripped jeans will be left in Frogmore Cottage along with any wedges which her Majesty hates with a passion.”
Meghan Markle has often demonstrated she is a fan of wearing denim, and recently caused a stir when she showed up at Wimbledon wearing jeans …
It is thought this year Meghan will visit the castle for the first time, where the Sussexes will be given their own wing, as well as enjoying a traditional afternoon tea with Her Maj.
A source told the Sun on Sunday: “The Queen and Prince Philip adore the couple and, of course, their new great-grandson Archie, and they have invited them to Balmoral for a few days.
“It is testament to Meghan that she has been given this invite. It’s a huge honour.”
However, they did not go, according to the Mail‘s September 6 report:
aides insisted the Sussexes were too busy working on charitable projects to join the Queen at Balmoral this weekend …
There had been rumours that the Sussexes would be joining the monarch at Balmoral in the Scottish Highlands this week with their baby son Archie.
But while most of the Royal Family have made the long trek up to Aberdeenshire, Harry and Meghan actually have no plans to fly to Scotland at all.
Sources close to the couple insist that the decision should not be seen as a ‘snub’ – and Harry only rarely goes up to the Queen’s Deeside estate nowadays.
The US Open
Instead, the Duchess made plans to fly to New York to see her friend Serena Williams compete at the US Open.
Serena Williams was said to be hesitant as she lost at Wimbledon when the Duchess was in the stands:
Despite the long flight and a stressful delay for Meghan, sources have claimed that Williams’ coaches aren’t massively thrilled that the Duchess has come to support her friend, as she could distract her from the game in hand.
They are said to be concerned due to the fact that Williams lost when Meghan attended her last match at Wimbledon.
A source told Page Six: ‘Serena asked her coach about Meghan coming when she won last night and everyone is worried, as tennis players are very superstitious, and Serena lost when Meghan came to watch her at Wimbledon.’
The source added that Williams’ aides were concerned that the trip was a publicity stunt.
However Williams is said to ‘adore’ Meghan and ‘wouldn’t have a word of it’.
It is not yet known where in New York Meghan will be staying and who she will be staying with, however she is thought to have flown first class for the two-day trip across the Atlantic.
It comes just days after her husband spoke out about sustainable travel at an environmentally-friendly tourism event in Amsterdam.
And last month he is understood to have given a passionate barefoot speech about saving the planet at Google’s £16million climate change summit in Sicily.
Meghan’s 7,000 mile journey to New York and back is expected to generate 986kg of carbon dioxide.
The article has a helpful map showing all seven flights that the Sussexes took between August 6 and September 6 in Europe.
Harry excused his flights as follows:
He took a scheduled flight to Amsterdam this week to promote Travalyst, a scheme for environmentally-friendly tourism.
Speaking at the event, the prince refused to apologise for his recent private flights, saying: ‘I spend 99 per cent of my life travelling the world by commercial.
‘Occasionally there needs to be an opportunity [to fly privately] based on a unique circumstance to ensure that my family are safe – it’s as simple as that.
‘For me it’s about balance. It’s not a decision I would want to take, but if I have to do that, I will ensure that I balance out the impact that I have.’
Harry dismissed concerns over his carbon footprint by insisting that he ‘offsets’ his emissions by donating to renewable energy incentives and planting trees.
Returning to tennis, it seems that Serena Williams’s coaches were correct. Meghan’s presence and Williams’s loss coincided, as the Mail told us on September 8:
Tennis fans have accused Meghan Markle of jinxing Serena Williams last night as she watched the tennis star lose and fail to secure an historic 24th Grand Slam at the US Open, just months after she attended Williams’ defeat at Wimbledon.
The Duchess of Sussex, 38, was called a ‘bad luck charm,’ with fans citing the resounding loss at the Wimbledon final to Simona Halep and the year before at SW19 to Angelique Kerber.
The Royal was the centre of attention in New York as she watched with Williams’ mother Oracene Price but the pair were left disappointed as the former number one was beaten 6-3, 7-5, by Canadian Bianca Andreescu.
Balmoral no-show — part 2
As for Balmoral, the Mail article continued:
Prince Harry and Meghan’s absence from the trip has left Her Majesty ‘hurt and disappointed,’ the Mail on Sunday understands, at a time when she likes to bring her friends and family together at her favourite time of the year.
The Queen is already said to be ‘baffled’ by Meghan and Harry’s inability to steer clear of PR calamities, and is concerned that her beloved grandson and his new wife are failing to listen to their team of advisers.
On September 8, The Sun told us:
THE QUEEN was left “hurt and disappointed” when Meghan Markle skipped visiting Balmoral in favour of her last-minute trip to New York over the weekend.
In opting for the US Open instead:
she snubbed the Queen’s invite to attend the Highland Games – something that proved a disappointment according to royal insiders.
The Mail on Sunday described the move as an “outright snub” adding that Her Majesty “is ‘hurt and disappointed’ at a time when she likes to bring her friends and family together.”
According to insiders the monarch had been looking forward to “a few days of merry chaos” with her great-grandchildren, including Archie who is still yet to visit the Queen’s summer home with Harry and Meghan claiming he is “too young.”
While Meghan was watching Serena Williams:
the Queen was joined by Prince Charles and Camilla at the Braemar Gathering Highland Games on Saturday …
The Queen is currently staying at her nearby summer residence Balmoral where she last night hosted Boris Johnson and girlfriend Carrie Symonds.
But the Prime Minister was forced to cut short the anticipated weekend-long visit after a turbulent week.
One week later on September 16, The Express reported:
The Queen “does not want to talk about the Sussexes” according to claims from a royal insider. People spending time with Her Majesty, 93, have reportedly been told not to mention Meghan Markle or Prince Harry. Leading royal expert Quentin Letts tweeted the bombshell remark this week, claiming it was the only subject that was strictly banned from discussion.
That is really bad.
As the King would say, ‘Dear, oh dear’.
The article continues:
Letts tweeted on Friday: “Friend of an acquaintance was about to go riding with HMQ.
“Was given v firm advice ‘Talk about anything except one subject.’ Brexit? ‘No, The Sussexes.'”
This comes after claims of clashes within the royal family.
The Queen was reportedly left “deeply disappointed” by Meghan and Harry’s hostile behaviour.
Several royal sources claimed the monarch was not impressed with the way Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have acted since marrying last year.
She is reportedly “disappointed” with their behaviour as representatives of the British monarchy around the world.
There is plenty more to come about the Sussexes. Stay tuned.
The first part of my series on former Health Secretary Matt Hancock can be found here.
It summarises where he is today, having finished third in a British reality show in Australia for a cool £400,000 and deciding not to run again as MP for West Suffolk.
It details the first months of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, through to the end of April as the news covered it.
To offer balance, today’s post covers the same period in Hancock’s own words. He has just published his Pandemic Diaries, which he co-authored with former Times journalist Isabel Oakeshott.
Isabel Oakeshott’s view
Not being able to imagine who on earth would want to collaborate on a book with our historically authoritarian Health Secretary who left his wife in June 2021 for his adviser/girlfriend, I was interested to read Oakeshott’s justification in The Spectator, posted on December 7, 2022.
Excerpts from ‘The truth about Matt Hancock’ follow, emphases mine:
Matt Hancock and I have almost nothing in common. For starters I’m terrified of spiders and hopelessly squeamish. I physically retched as I watched him eating unmentionables in the Australian jungle. Far more importantly, we fundamentally disagree over his handling of the pandemic …
This country paid a catastrophic price for what I see as a reckless overreaction to a disease that was only life-threatening to a small number of people who could have been protected without imprisoning the entire population. As each day passes, more evidence emerges that shutting down society for prolonged periods to ‘stop the spread’ and ‘protect the NHS’ was a monumental disaster.
Hancock, obviously, disagrees. The Rt Hon Member for West Suffolk is not just unrepentant: he still wholeheartedly believes that as health secretary during the pandemic, he made all the right calls. He is utterly scathing of anyone who argues that repeated lockdowns were avoidable; does not have the slightest doubt over any aspect of the government’s vaccine policy; and thinks anyone who believes any other approach to the pandemic was either realistic or desirable is an idiot.
How then could I have worked with him on his book about the pandemic? Some of my lockdown confidantes suggested it was a betrayal and that he should be punished, perhaps viciously so.
… I wanted to get to the truth. What better way to find out what really happened – who said what to whom; the driving force and thinking behind key policies and decisions; who (if anyone) dissented; and how they were crushed – than to align myself with the key player? I might not get the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but I’d certainly get a good dollop of it, and a keen sense of anything murky requiring further investigation.
In the event, Hancock shared far more than I could ever have imagined. I have viewed thousands and thousands of sensitive government communications relating to the pandemic, a fascinating and very illuminating exercise. I was not paid a penny for this work, but the time I spent on the project – almost a year – was richly rewarding in other ways. Published this week, co-authored by me, Hancock’s Pandemic Diaries are the first insider account from the heart of government of the most seismic political, economic and public health crisis of our times.
I am not so naive as to imagine that he told me everything. However, since he still does not believe he did anything wrong, he was surprisingly inclined to disclosure. In an indication of how far he was prepared to go, the Cabinet Office requested almost 300 deletions and amendments to our original manuscript. Under pressure from me and out of his own desire that the book should be both entertaining and revelatory, to his credit, Hancock fought hard to retain as much controversial material as he could. The resulting work is twice as long as I originally intended, and half the length he wanted it to be.
Pandemic Diaries: January to April 2020
The Mail has been serialising Pandemic Diaries over the past week.
Excerpts from the first exclusive extract follow, beginning on New Year’s Day 2020.
Wednesday, January 1:
Standing in my kitchen in Suffolk after a quiet New Year’s Eve, I scanned my newspaper for clues as to what might be lurking around the corner. The only thing on my patch was a news-in-brief story about a mystery pneumonia outbreak in China.
There were enough people in hospital for Beijing to have put out an alert. It reminded me a bit of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) back in 2003, which killed hundreds, mainly in China and Hong Kong. I asked my private office to put together a briefing and made a mental note to raise it when I got back.
Sunday, January 5:
There are now 59 cases in China; seven of these patients are seriously ill with breathing problems.
Tuesday, January 7, when Parliament had returned from Christmas recess:
I found the PM [Boris] in the voting lobby looking like he’d had a good Christmas and revelling in all the congratulatory back slaps from colleagues. We walked through the lobby together, and I told him about the new disease.
‘You keep an eye on it,’ he said breezily. ‘It will probably go away like all the others.’
In more trivial news, a picture of my Union Jack socks has somehow gone viral after I was pictured on my way into Cabinet yesterday. My old university friend and communications specialist Gina Coladangelo was not particularly impressed. She thinks they’re a bit Ukip.
Saturday, January 11:
First death from the virus in China — at least, the first one they’ve told us about.
Friday, January 17:
When I got into the department, Chris Whitty — whom I appointed Chief Medical Officer last year, and who is known informally as the Prof — asked for a word. Calmly, in his ultra-reasonable way, he explained that he thinks the virus has a 50:50 chance of escaping China. If it gets out of China in a big way, he says a very large number of people will die.
At this point, Boris was preparing for our official exit from the European Union at the end of January. Everyone’s attention, not surprisingly, was on Brexit. Hancock’s push for a Cabinet Office Briefing — COBRA — went unheeded.
Wednesday, January 22:
I found out tonight that Sir Mark Sedwill, Cabinet Secretary and head of the civil service, is blocking my push for a meeting of COBRA. Infuriating!
Thursday, January 23:
No 10 has grudgingly agreed to let me make a statement to the Commons about the virus. No 10 are still saying calling COBRA would be ‘alarmist’. What utter rubbish.
Friday, January 24:
Dominic Cummings [the PM’s chief adviser] thinks Covid is a distraction from our official withdrawal from the EU next week. That’s all he wants Boris talking about.
On Saturday, January 25, Hancock worried about evacuating Britons from Wuhan. He contacted then-Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who agreed to put a plan into place. On Sunday, Hancock was frustrated to find that civil servants were drawing up advice on whether, not how, to evacuate UK citizens there.
Monday, January 27:
Coronavirus is now the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing I think about when I go to bed.
The next day, Tuesday, a meeting of 30 people took place to discuss the virus, including SAGE members Chris Whitty and Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, who would be regulars on our television screens in the months to come. This is where the alarmism started.
Tuesday, January 28 (see photo):
In his characteristically understated way, sitting at the back peeling a tangerine, Chris Whitty quietly informed everyone that in the reasonable worst-case scenario, as many as 820,000 people in the UK may die. The transmission is so high that almost everyone would catch it.
The whole room froze. We are looking at a human catastrophe on a scale not seen here for a century.
I asked what we needed to do to accelerate a vaccine. Professor [Jonathan] Van-Tam said developing a vaccine normally takes five to ten years, but there’s a team in Oxford working on an Ebola project that can easily be switched to the new disease.
‘I want it by Christmas,’ I said.
On Wednesday, Boris’s PMQs went as usual, with no mention of the virus. Hancock was frustrated.
Wednesday, January 29:
I called the head of the World Health Organisation to try to persuade him — for the second time — to declare a public health international emergency. But China runs various projects in his private office, so he is scared stiff of upsetting them.
Thursday, January 30:
The Wuhan Brits are on their way back. I’ve had a showdown with officials and lawyers over what to do with the evacuees when they land at RAF Brize Norton.
PHE [Public Health England] thinks they should be greeted with a smile and a leaflet and asked nicely to go home and stay there for a couple of weeks. I said they should go straight into quarantine. PHE started hand-wringing about human rights. ‘OK,’ I said, ‘let’s get them to sign a contract before they board. In return for the flight, they agree to go into quarantine. No contract, no flight.’ I was told the contract wouldn’t be legally enforceable and was too draconian. ‘Do it anyway,’ I instructed.
The World Health Organisation have finally declared the virus a public health emergency. The risk level in the UK has now gone from low to moderate.
PHE’s audit of PPE [personal protective equipment] came back and did not lighten my mood. There’s no clear record of what’s in the stockpile, and some kit is past its ‘best before’ date. I’ve instructed officials to work out what we need fast, and buy in huge quantities.
Friday, January 31:
The Wuhan flight touched down at Brize Norton. The RAF crew and all our officials were in full hazmat suits, but the poor coach drivers taking them into quarantine were in their normal work clothes. Who on earth would give protection to air crew but not bus crew?
The UK left the EU on schedule. I remember the parliamentary contributions from Conservative MPs about the wonderful plans they had for the nation. It was a glorious time to be alive.
Meanwhile, Downing Street’s attention would turn to the pandemic in February.
Hancock tries to paint himself as a supporter of personal liberty in this next diary entry.
Tuesday, February 4:
As a [classical] liberal, I’ve always believed people make the best decisions for themselves. Now we are contemplating actions that could bankrupt millions of businesses and interfere in literally everyone’s lives. It is a very, very strange feeling; not me at all.
Hancock says that Boris, rightly, was still unconcerned.
Tuesday, February 11:
Driving home down the Harrow Road [in London], I looked at the crowds spilling out of the pub on the corner and tried to imagine what it will be like if we have to shut these places. I felt like I inhabited another world, that no one outside had yet seen into.
Hancock finally got his COBRA meeting.
Wednesday, February 12:
Back in the COBRA room today for a civil service exercise to rehearse what we’ll do if the virus runs out of control. We role-played how we would do our jobs in two months’ time if the very worst-case scenario has happened and hundreds of thousands are dying.
Where in Hyde Park would the burial pits be? Who would dig them? Have we got enough body bags?
Worst of all was agreeing a protocol to instruct doctors which lives to save. Do we treat the young, because they have more years to live, or the old, because they are more vulnerable? Horrific decisions.
Public Health England (PHE) had bad news for Hancock.
Tuesday, February 18:
PHE says our current approach of tracing all contacts of anyone who’s infected is unsustainable. Apparently they can only cope with five new cases a week. This is infuriating since only a few weeks ago they told me they had the best system in the world.
I had no idea that China was buying testing services from Britain’s Randox. Hmm.
Thursday, February 27:
PHE has outright refused a request from Randox, the UK’s biggest testing company, for coronavirus samples. Certain senior public health officials are absolutely allergic to anything involving the private sector. Evidently they’d rather risk lives than set aside these ideological objections.
No such sniffiness from the Chinese, who are snapping up Randox’s services.
At the beginning of March, public health posters and announcements about coronavirus began appearing.
Sunday, March 1:
We’re telling everyone to wash their hands more frequently and encouraging parents to get their kids to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ twice to make sure they do it for long enough. What I really wanted people to sing was the national anthem.
Sadly, I was overruled, as the collective view seems to be that happy birthday is ‘less divisive’. Since when is the national anthem controversial? Sigh.
Thursday, March 5:
First two UK deaths — a horrible landmark.
Saturday, March 7:
There’s a crisis looming with ventilators. We have nowhere near enough. If the worst comes to the worst, we may need to put out advice on how to care for a critically-ill relative at home, a terrifying prospect for most people.
I took a few hours off today and took the kids to Planet Laser in Bury St Edmunds [in his constituency]. It involves charging around in the dark in a ‘battle suit’ firing lasers at other players. I was looking forward to forgetting about coronavirus for an hour or so, but no such luck: it turned out that one of the games is called Infection.
Every time a player’s laser hit one of the other players, they would get ‘infected’ with a disease. In between attempts to dodge the fictional virus, I kept having to dart out to respond to urgent messages about the real one.
By March 8, the UK began experiencing a shortage of bathroom tissue. People were bulk buying. Rice was another product in short supply. Hancock says that he and his wife bought a huge sack of rice.
Another thing in short supply were hospital beds.
Monday, March 9:
In my box of official papers this evening was a scientific briefing suggesting the NHS could have a deficit of 150,000 beds and 9,000 ICU spaces.
Tuesday, March 10:
I’ve instructed PHE to produce plans for how they will get testing up from 1,000 tests a week to 10,000. I don’t care who does these tests — just that they’re fast and accurate.
Thursday, March 12:
While the Prime Minister was standing before the nation declaring we’re doing everything possible to save lives, PHE have advised to stop all contact tracing. They’ve basically given up, having become overwhelmed by the number of cases. Infuriating!
March 12, 2020 was the day of the last lunch my better half and I had with friends in Mayfair before lockdown. None of us would have believed that we would not see each other again until August 11, 2021, by which time indoor mask restrictions had been lifted.
Friday, March 13:
A call with my fellow G7 Health Ministers. Everyone sounded terrified.
Also from that day:
Simon Stevens [NHS England chief executive] says frail elderly patients who don’t need urgent treatment need to be discharged from hospital, either to their home or to care homes. He’s spoken to the PM about it and is determined to make it happen.
Saturday, March 14:
In just three days, the numbers have doubled. At 10am I went to Downing Street to talk to the PM and others. We wrestled with all the issues. What measures? How long? Would people comply? Are we doing enough to make sure the NHS can cope?
We were all struggling to get our heads round the enormity of what we were discussing. Boris set out the case for and against each option. After everyone had had their say, we collectively made the decision: to close large swathes of society.
Monday, March 16:
Cummings, [communications director] Lee Cain, Whitty and I went into Boris’s study garden and finessed the message he was going to give in a televised press conference. Then, at 5pm, it was time. Looking as grave as he ever does, Boris told the elderly and vulnerable they are going to have to stay at home for 12 weeks.
That day, Hancock issued his first guidelines to Parliament and the public:
Tuesday, March 17:
I’ve been told we have a billion items of PPE in a warehouse in the North-West. ‘Hooray!’ I thought. Just one problem — we can’t get it out. It turns out that it’s in a huge storage unit with only one door. Ergo, only one lorry can pull up at a time. What a classic government fail.
It was my son’s 12th birthday today, almost all of which I missed. My family is already paying a heavy price for this crisis.
Also from that day:
A bonkers proposal from the Ministry of Justice to let prisoners out, as they’d be easier to manage if they’re not in prison. Yes really: they actually thought this might be a goer. I was emphasising [my opposition] so hard that all of a sudden my chair could take the strain no longer and ripped, tipping me unceremoniously on to the floor.
Hancock advised that the public could pose any questions on his Instagram account:
A few days before, Hancock appealed to retired NHS practitioners to return to the health service to help in the pandemic effort. On Saturday, March 21, he said that 4,000 nurses and 500 doctors were returning:
Good Morning Britain‘s Piers Morgan quickly got into panic mode:
Sunday, March 22:
Crunch meeting in Downing Street, at which the Prime Minister weighed up all the options. He’s famous for this, so it’s impossible to know in the middle of the meeting where he’s going to end up. It’s his way of making big decisions. Today he agreed to a formal lockdown as soon as possible.
Monday, March 23:
At 8.30pm, the Prime Minister gave his address to the nation. ‘From this evening, I must give the British people a very simple instruction: you must stay at home . . .’
In my own household, I found an old computer in the attic and have set it up for our youngest, though I’m not sure how online school is going to work for a six-year-old. With me largely absent, it’s tough on the family.
Hancock led the coronavirus briefing for the first time on Tuesday, March 24. He described himself as being ‘unusually nervous’.
Tuesday, March 24:
Driving down Park Lane there wasn’t a single other car on the road — not one. I sat in the back of the car feeling almost sick. All I could think was: What have we done?
The nausea wouldn’t last long, however. Hancock would soon grow into his newly found power.
He had many messages that day:
He announced a war footing for the British public:
The first Nightingale hospital — relatively unused — was opened.
Hancock ordered NHS and care home staff to report to work:
He issued contradictory advice about working between addressing the House of Commons and the coronavirus briefing later that day:
London’s mayor Sadiq Khan said that too many Tube workers were off sick to run a full service. This left the trains that were running packed to the gills:
Hancock said that lockdown was not guidance and that police would enforce it:
Meanwhile, the airports were open to all arrivals:
On Wednesday, March 25, Hancock expressed his gratitude to the 405,000 Britons who were volunteering in the pandemic effort:
Friday, March 27:
A nurse called first thing this morning to say I’ve got Covid. I called [the PM’s press secretary] Jack Doyle to break the news. ‘Erm, that’s interesting, as we’re just about to announce that the PM has tested positive, too,’ he replied. To cap it all, the Prof [Chris Whitty] also has symptoms.
He later announced his positive diagnosis:
Sunday, March 29:
My throat hurts so much that I can’t swallow and I can’t eat or drink. [My wife] Martha has also got it, along with our daughter and our live-in au pair.
Meanwhile there are still dire supply issues with PPE. The BMA [British Medical Association] is going nuts. It’s not as if I think it’s acceptable: it’s not! There’s just no quick fix. When the whole world is after it, it simply isn’t possible to get as much as we need as fast as it’s required.
Monday, March 30:
The government-owned company that gets PPE supplies to hospitals across the NHS has effectively collapsed. Total disaster.
I’m absolutely furious that the people who are meant to be experts in logistics have been unable to cope because there are too many actual logistics. WTF? We’ve been buying more from China, but the immediate problem is still lorry access to our storage facility in the North-West, where there’s only one door. Funnily enough, nobody has been able to magic up any extra entrances, so we’re still stuck with single lorryloads at a time.
On Thursday, April 2, Hancock announced his audacious and controversial plan of getting 100,000 coronavirus tests done by May 1, something for which he was derided by the media at the daily coronavirus briefings.
Also from that day:
Negative tests won’t be required prior to transfers/admissions into care homes. The tragic but honest truth is we don’t have enough testing capacity to check anyway. It’s an utter nightmare, but it’s the reality.
Under the circumstances, we must make sure that anyone going from a hospital into a care home is kept away from other residents. I hope this message filters through and is followed.
It’s been a choice between very difficult options. If we keep people in hospital, the NHS will be overrun. If only we had more tests.
Friday, April 3:
A 13-year-old boy who died from Covid was buried without any mourners yesterday. His parents weren’t even at the graveside because they were self-isolating. I felt almost physically sick reading it as my own boy, just a year younger, slept peacefully in the room next door.
I told Boris and he was shocked and upset. He tries not to let on, but he is actually a very emotional man. He was coughing through the call. He’s very worried about looking weak: ‘A general’s job is to show strength, not weakness,’ he told me ruefully.
Also from that day:
Officials are still insisting that Justice Secretary Rob Buckland wants to release thousands of non-violent prisoners to take the pressure off the system. I keep writing ‘NO’ in large letters on submissions asking me to sign this off. It’s obvious the public won’t wear it, yet the idea keeps going back and forth on paper.
After about the third iteration I called Rob Buckland, who to my astonishment told me he’d been advised that I was the one who wanted to release them.
Unfortunately, this still wasn’t the end of the matter. Clearly someone in Whitehall still thought it was a good idea and kept pushing it, to the point that the PM asked to talk to us both. I made my views crystal clear.
‘We cannot lock up literally everyone in the country except prisoners, who we instead release!’ I spluttered.
Saturday, April 4:
President Trump has randomly and dangerously declared that hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment for Covid, despite a total absence of the evidence. What an awful, awful man.
The next day, the Queen gave a brief message of support to her subjects, ending with ‘We’ll meet again’, echoing Dame Vera Lynn’s famous song from the Second World War.
Shortly afterwards, the nation received alarming news.
Sunday, April 5:
I was just about to go to bed when my phone rang for the umpteenth time. It was [Cabinet Secretary] Mark Sedwill, who informed me that the Prime Minister was on his way to St Thomas’s Hospital ‘as a precautionary step’. Boris is still furiously texting everyone.
Everyone knows that a Prime Minister isn’t admitted to hospital unless it’s something very serious. And so it turned out to be.
Monday, April 6:
Boris has been taken into intensive care. Everyone is stunned. I’m told there’s a 50:50 chance he’ll end up on a ventilator; and if that happens, we know there’s a 50:50 chance he will die. The minute the news came out, pharma companies started calling my private office with offers of experimental drugs.
On Tuesday, Hancock surmised Boris was in intensive care because coronavirus affects the obese.
Wednesday, April 8:
Boris spent a second night in intensive care. I worry about losing a close colleague and friend. When you spend time with Boris, it’s impossible not to like him.
He’s endlessly funny and engaging and thinks differently and more laterally than anyone I know. This can bring its challenges when straight-line thinking is required, but for grasping the big picture there’s no one like him.
Nobody speaks of it, but there is a ‘worst-case scenario’ plan for if Boris doesn’t pull through. We couldn’t possibly have a normal Conservative Party leadership election, so the Cabinet would have to take a quick decision, advise the Queen and rally round.
Boris left intensive care on April 9. He left hospital at the weekend. He then went to Chequers to recuperate, accompanied by his then-partner Carrie Symonds, who was in the final weeks of her pregnancy with their son Wilf.
Care homes were Hancock’s focus for the rest of the month — and the summer.
Wednesday, April 15:
From today, everyone going from hospital into social care will be tested and then isolated while the result comes through.
Saturday, April 18:
Care homes haven’t yet grasped the fact that we’re only going to get out of this if we test, test, test. According to figures I received today, the average care home has carried out 0.5 tests, which is exasperating, given how hard we’re working to increase capacity.
Also from that day, another tempest brewed over PPE supplies, which is still a hot topic in Parliament, even today:
Hundreds of businesses are approaching the department offering to manufacture this or that. Half the time nobody returns their calls, even with big companies such as Primark.
The problem is weeding out time-wasters and chancers – of which there are many – without missing opportunities. One company with a good product got so p***ed off they sold everything to the Scottish NHS.
Even the Labour Party is writing in with suggested names of companies and individuals who could help – apparently without doing any due diligence on the offers.
Hancock sensed that not everyone in Downing Street or the Cabinet wanted him to succeed.
Monday, April 20:
Crunch week for hitting my testing target of 100,000 tests done by May 1. There’s an uncomfortable amount of speculation about my career depending on it. [Dominic] Cummings is itching for me to fail.
Friday, April 24:
Downing Street called my office saying I needed to schedule a quick call with the PM. I was looking forward to it, until I switched on Zoom to find the PM at Chequers flanked by Cummings and about a dozen other advisers. Rishi [Sunak] was there, looking sheepish. I realised instantly what was going on: an attempted ambush.
Boris opened with some gentle warm-ups, then Cummings started the shelling, subjecting me to a barrage of questions about my department’s response: on PPE, testing, NHS capacity, ventilators. Every so often, one of the others would pile in. Most questions seemed to be based on inaccurate media reports.
It was utterly exhausting, but I’ve lived this for months now, 18 hours a day, pretty much every day, so I am on top of every detail.
When they finally ran out of ammunition, I pressed ‘Leave Meeting’, sat back in my chair, checked my body for shrapnel wounds and saw that I was broadly intact. Next?
To be continued tomorrow.
While Nigel Farage took a two-week break from his early evening GB News show, actor Laurence Fox, who also founded the Reclaim Party, was his guest host.
What a surprise viewers had on Tuesday, October 4, 2022, when Fox spoke to Donald Trump on the phone:
It was an excellent interview, done in segments, after which a Democrat or a Republican appeared on air to give his or her views of what Trump had just said.
This is the full hour-long episode:
Fox began by reviewing Trump’s accomplishments while in office, pointing out that he got elected in 2016 because he could connect with millions of Americans and didn’t come off as an elitist like Hillary Clinton did:
America’s 45th president told Fox how surprised he was at Boris Johnson’s change of focus during his premiership, saying that he ‘went woke’:
This GB News article has more (emphases mine):
Donald Trump has called former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson “woke” in a surprising attack on his ally.
In a world exclusive GB News interview, the ex-US President said Boris Johnson “went liberal all of a sudden” in a “crazy” move.
Trump called Mr Johnson a “good guy” but criticised him for “changing” as he spoke to Laurence Fox.
The 76-year-old said: “Boris was a friend of mine, perhaps he still is but I haven’t spoken to him in a while.
“The problem Boris has is he went liberal all of a sudden, and I think that is crazy.
“He’s a good man but something happened to him, he changed, he went for windmills all over the place and he went a little bit wokier than I believe he is and I think ultimately that is the thing that got him out.
“I don’t think it was the party [Conservatives] I think that was just an excuse.”
Although Trump has not met Boris’s successor Liz Truss, he is favourably disposed towards her:
Trump also said that he was surprised at the criticism Truss’s mini-budget received (more here):
The Telegraph reported on that part of the interview:
Former US president Donald Trump had said that he backs new Prime Minister Liz Truss and that he thinks “very highly” of her.
Speaking on GB News to Laurence Fox, Trump said of Truss that he liked “some of the things she’s done”, adding that he had “cut taxes very substantially and we did much more business and she’s done that”.
He said that he thinks “very highly of her and she had a great send-off from the Queen”, adding that as it was the late Queen’s last meeting it was a “big deal”.
Joe Biden’s former Chief of Staff appeared but she didn’t respond to anything Trump had said. She only wanted to bang on about how ‘divisive’ he had been as president. Talk about living in a parallel universe:
In a separate interview, Greg Swenson from Republicans Overseas UK lauded Trump’s economic policy and said that more countries around the world should implement them:
Trump discussed his own major accomplishments during his four-year term, which brought criticism from an adviser to both the Bush II and Clinton administrations. Fox ended this man’s three-minute rant by telling him to go and have another espresso:
Trump rightly told Fox that, if he were still president, there would be no war in Ukraine:
Former Royal Navy Commander Dr Chris Parry agreed:
Trump was discreet about his meeting with King Charles III a few years ago and offered his support to the new monarch. Trump also reminded us that his mother was Scottish:
GB News reported:
He told Laurence Fox: “I think he’ll probably not discuss certain elements of what he believes, in my opinion.
“I think Charles is going to do very well, he’s got a great way about him, I think he did very well during the ceremony [Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral].”
Despite his warm feeling towards the royal, Trump admitted he does not hold look upon Prince Harry and Meghan Markle as favourably.
He told GB News: “I’m not a fan, I was never much of a fan of her [Meghan].
“I don’t get it, but I hope he’s [Harry] happy, he didn’t seem too happy and he doesn’t seem too happy.
“I thought she was disrespectful to the Queen, which is a no no, you can’t do that.”
The Telegraph had more:
“I know him very well, quite well. And I spent a lot of time when I was over there as president with him. And with his wife [who] was absolutely lovely, by the way, and we had a good time together,” he said.
As for the King’s popularity versus his mother’s, he said:
Probably difficult when you’re the King you want to have 100% of the people love you like the Queen did. The Queen had – everybody loved her, right? She didn’t have that kind of an agenda.
And yet, you know, she was a very strong woman. I got to know her too. She was a very strong woman, a great woman.
The interview ended with a discussion about biopics. Fox plays Hunter Biden in My Son Hunter, released on September 7.
Trump said that, if it were ever to happen, he hoped that Fox could play him in a biographical movie:
Oh, that voice!
He enthused for another minute or so about Fox’s accent, then, with both parties happy, the call came to an end.
Fox’s interview style is conversational, something Trump would appreciate. What a great hour of television.
Having watched BBC Parliament for the better part of three years, I can only conclude that today’s Conservative MPs are a frustrating bunch.
Many of the older hands, who were elected when David Cameron was Prime Minister (2010-2016), seem more like Liberal Democrats. The Thatcher-era MPs who remain are what she would have called Wets.
Many commenters on conservative fora are at their wit’s end. Their complaints are many. Why have Conservatives outdone Labour in economic policy? Why are odd subjects taught in our schools instead of the three Rs? Why can’t police get a grip on real crime? Those are just a few of the questions Britons have.
On August 12, The Telegraph‘s Tim Stanley and Steven Edginton discussed British conservatism in one of their Off Script conversations. What is it? What should it be like?
This video is 51 minutes long and is well worth watching for frustrated conservatives. Don’t be put off by the title. Immigration comes into the conversation only halfway through and only for a few minutes:
Tim Stanley makes excellent points, summarised below.
The most important thing to note is that conservatism changes over time. Benjamin Disraeli was a great Conservative Prime Minister, but his conservatism would not be applicable in our time. Harold Macmillan was another great Prime Minister of his day, succeeding Labour’s Clement Attlee. He responded to the challenges of the postwar 1950s. His brand of conservatism would be irrelevant in our times. Similarly, Margaret Thatcher met the challenges of the late 1970s and the 1980s. Stanley said that invoking Thatcher at every turn today is not helping matters, because we often mis-remember things that she did. He said that some commentators have turned her into a punk libertarian, when she was anything but. He says she was a Conservative with a strong streak of free-will Methodism.
Of our two Conservative Party leadership candidates this year, he says that Rishi Sunak is a technocrat, with all that implies. Liz Truss is a child of the Thatcher years. Both became MPs during David Cameron’s time as PM. They tend to think the way he does and only differ on the way they would handle tax cuts. In this area, Sunak adopts the early Thatcher strategy of delaying them. Truss adopts the strategy of her later years, when Nigel Lawson was Chancellor. On everything else, they are remarkably similar. It’s a politically generational trait.
Stanley came to conservatism from Marxism and stood as a Labour candidate for Parliament when he was younger. He thinks that Truss’s conversion from the Liberal Democrats to the Conservative Party is one she will not fall away from.
Stanley says that Kemi Badenoch, whom he admires greatly, is probably the only MP who studies social issues intently. He thinks she has watched a lot of Thomas Sowell videos on YouTube, because she quotes him a lot.
He thinks Badenoch could be a real agent for change if she ever becomes PM. He warns that few world leaders can effect change on their own. He cites Donald Trump, who could not fight off the Swamp. Our equivalent is called the Blob and is comprised of the same elements: the metropolitan elite and, intersecting as in a Venn diagram, the media and the civil service. Somehow, those groups need to be persuaded to change their minds over time in order for politics and society to improve.
Stanley says that today’s Conservative MPs are ignoring two elements of British life that has seen us through the centuries: family and the Church. (Stanley is a practising Catholic.) He said that MPs must find a way of putting those front and centre into policy making discussions. (That’s a pretty radical idea for a former Marxist.)
He also advocates consistency in policy positions. He cites Nigel Farage and Jeremy Corbyn as two excellent examples of that. Their opinions have not changed over the past few decades, he says, and this is what makes them popular among their respective supporters.
As for today’s younger voters opting for Labour, he says that some will and some will not. He said that it all depends on how much impact today’s economic and social issues are having on them. He cites the young generation of the late 1960s, most of whom still vote Labour. He says that their personal experience from that time was so strong that they never changed when they hit middle age. However, there are others who will move from a more left-wing to a conservative stance. Stanley himself and Liz Truss are two great examples of political conversion.
You’ll probably want to know what Stanley thinks of our immigration mess. He says that we have dealt with EU migration well, but, as far as the Channel crossings are concerned, he compares them to a door that has all sorts of locks on it yet is kept open, serving no purpose at all. He suspects that most Conservative MPs don’t mind the tens of thousands of young men arriving on our shores every year. If they did object, he says, they would have done something by now to stem the flow.
I highly recommend this video, because no one else I’ve heard has said the things that Tim Stanley has. I now view conservatism in a new way.
Last week I posted about the comedian Jerry Sadowitz, whose Fringe show was cancelled by Edinburgh’s Pleasance Theatre.
We have seen more examples of the demise of free speech, particularly in the UK, in 2022.
Restaurant’s help wanted ad
In February 2022, Steve Bothwell, who owns the 27-year-old Aberdeen restaurant Cafe 52, placed a no-nonsense advert online in an attempt to hire more staff:
On February 28, Scotland’s Daily Record reported that the advert went viral and received much online how-dare-he criticism, included in its article.
However, the ad’s wording spells out what Steve Bothwell wants: a hard-working employee who is focused on continuing the excellent reputation of the restaurant rather than his or her social identity politics.
I admire a man who says he doesn’t want mask wearing Guardian readers, virtue signallers and self-testers. I wouldn’t, either. He was also right to say that hospitality works only when staff:
leave their egos in their lockers.
He gave an interview to the paper (emphases mine):
Speaking to the Daily Record he said: “I don’t regret the wording [of the job advert], but I wish people would get on their pins about more important issues.
“I’m not banning anyone. The advert was tongue in cheek.”
He added: “I’ve had three good applications this morning off the back of the advert.”
Some weeks later, one of The Guardian‘s restaurant critics, Grace Dent, had lunch at Cafe 52. Wow! If any of my readers are in Aberdeen, this place looks great. It’s right across the street from Aberdeen Market.
Dent’s review, complete with must-see close-up photos, appeared on April 1, but this was no April Fool’s joke:
The menu was full of delicious-sounding things such as cullen skink, hot smoked mackerel, and Normandy chicken casserole with leeks and tarragon. As I loitered by the door, something about the cafe’s name rang a bell, then, to my glee, I realised this was the place whose owner famously doesn’t like Guardian readers, and who earlier this year penned a job advert banning them. Perhaps I should have been offended, but there was a bread-and-butter pudding made with crumpets on the menu, plus, to quote Groucho Marx, “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.”
… This charming, long, narrow strip of a bistro has survived for more than 25 years without the likes of me, and is these days serving a sort of boho, rustic, French-Scottish, casual-elegant menu to a unending stream of walk-ins. Cafe 52 has no need for my pronouncements.
Dent was complimentary about the servers as well as the food. So, the advert worked!
She described the food as follows:
I like Aberdeen a great deal, and spent three wonderful days there alone, talking to strangers and eating …
But Cafe 52 was my favourite. Proprietor Steve Bothwell … has created a place where glorious food matters, and I can say beyond doubt that my restorative bowl of Normandy chicken casserole will be one of the greatest things I’ll eat all year. Chicken soup – or stew, in this case – does touch the soul, and a good one is as close to a cuddle from Mother T herself as you can get. This one featured five or six chunks of soft, stewed breast, thigh and leg in a clear tarragon broth with the very occasional chunk of soft potato or slice of garlicky mushroom, and was way more than the sum of its parts. This stew, topped with a vivid pink bundle of pickled red cabbage, was a wonder, with fragrant tarragon the hero ingredient. I ate it with a side of kale, deep fried and laced with chilli, which is the only way to treat it – that is, mercilessly …
Steve Bothwell’s mother, who is in her 80s, makes all the desserts. Amazing:
Bothwell’s octogenarian mother makes all the puddings at Cafe 52, and just two spoons into her crumpet bread-and-butter pudding I felt the need to check with the staff if anyone had written down the recipes for her carrot and brandied fruit cake or her coffee cake with rum syllabub. The bread pudding is a fearsome, rib-sticking challenge of a dessert, with crumpet after crumpet smothered in sweet, eggy custard and served with vanilla ice-cream. It’s the sort of dish that makes guests at other tables wink and wish me luck, as if I was some sort of amateur at this game. The first four or five spoons were sublime, all sticky and compelling; I was living my best life.
The owner also asked if she had enjoyed her lunch:
“Yer stew all right?” he asked, semi-begrudgingly, as if he didn’t really care what the answer was going to be, but was curious anyway.
“Incredible,” I said. “I loved it.”
“Fine,” he said, and walked off without another glance in my direction. I have paved a way for all of us. Just don’t go in carrying this newspaper.
Edinburgh Fringe’s best jokes
Speaking of Scotland, the Edinburgh Fringe is supposed to be — and once was — the world’s edgiest comedy festival.
It was last held in 2019 and resumed again this year.
Each year, a series of comedy awards are bestowed upon the best talent. They were once sponsored by Perrier and propelled comedians to stardom. Now it seems that the UK comedy channel Dave has assumed the mantle.
On Monday, August 22, The Guardian gave us the top, award-winning jokes from the 2022 Fringe.
At best, these are Christmas cracker jokes, most of which a 10-year-old could tell:
1. I tried to steal spaghetti from the shop, but the female guard saw me and I couldn’t get pasta – Masai Graham (52%)
2. Did you know, if you get pregnant in the Amazon, it’s next day delivery? – Mark Simmons (37%)
3. My attempts to combine nitrous oxide and Oxo cubes made me a laughing stock – Olaf Falafel (36%)
4. By my age, my parents had a house and a family, and to be fair to me, so do I, but it is the same house and the same family – Hannah Fairweather (35%)
5. I hate funerals. I’m not a mourning person – Will Mars (34%)
6. I spent the whole morning building a time machine, so that’s four hours of my life that I’m definitely getting back – Olaf Falafel (33%)
7. I sent a food parcel to my first wife. FedEx – Richard Pulsford (29%)
8. I used to live hand to mouth. Do you know what changed my life? Cutlery – Tim Vine (28%)
9. Don’t knock threesomes. Having a threesome is like hiring an intern to do all the jobs you hate – Sophie Duker (27%)
10. I can’t even be bothered to be apathetic these days – Will Duggan (25%)
Dire.
On Sunday, the topic came up for discussion on Andrew Doyle’s Free Speech Nation show for GB News (54:43 to 58:00):
Doyle’s guests, fellow comedians, deplored the level of comedy at this year’s Fringe.
One said that there are ‘tastemakers’ who nominate comedians for an award and go on to nationwide shows.
Another said that, if this trend continues and edgy comedians like Jerry Sadowitz aren’t allowed back in, it will spell curtains for the top Fringe venue:
The Pleasance will die.
Another intimated that the establishment wanted to reshape comedy into something anodyne:
These big venues are getting large donations from the Scottish Government.
That might well be true. I read or heard somewhere that someone from the Scottish National Party owns a few comedy clubs in Edinburgh.
Hmm.
Censored television shows versus nudity
On the topic of censored comedy, British actress Vicki Michelle from the classic sitcom ‘Allo, ‘Allo! weighed in last week on the current preference for saucy reality shows over reruns of old family-oriented shows.
‘Allo, ‘Allo! satirised the Second World War and was a huge hit that ran for ten years. Until recently, it, and other classic sitcoms from the 1960s through to the 1980s, were often shown on the BBC.
Now they are all on a paid-subscription streaming platform called BritBox. It’s odd that the British paid in television tax to see these shows, now they are expected to pay again to see them.
BritBox has put content warnings on ‘Allo, ‘Allo! and other programmes from that era.
Television and streaming services are dictating what we can and cannot see.
On August 19, Vicki Michelle gave an interview to The Mirror, which The Telegraph reprised:
A string of content warnings for TV series was issued last year by streaming service BritBox – a collaborative venture between the BBC and other broadcasters – including one advisory note which told viewers that ‘Allo ‘Allo! featured “outdated” material.
“Comedy is being neutralised – or nuked,” Ms Michelle said. “I think 80 per cent of this country would love comedy like ‘Allo ‘Allo! to be made again, so 20 per cent might take aversion to some of the content.”
The series which ran from 1982 to 1992 was set at the Cafe Rene in the town of Nouvion and followed the comic troubles of proprietor Rene Artois – played by Gorden Kaye – as he juggled the dangers posed by British airmen, the French resistance and Nazi occupiers.
The humour stemmed from innuendo and mockery of national stereotypes and accents, and in 2021 Britbox warned modern audiences about the supposedly dated content of the decades-old programme, with a note stating: “This classic comedy contains language and attitudes of the time that may offend some viewers.”
BritBox explained at the time that certain classic programmes required advice on the “potentially sensitive language or attitudes of their era”.
The actress objects, pointing out the near-obscene content of some of our reality television shows, both visually and orally:
Michelle argued that contemporary television is far more offensive than the comedy now deemed worthy of content warnings, telling the Daily Mirror: “People eff, blind and use the c-word on telly and that’s considered fine.
“And on reality TV people make love under a sheet, and that’s fine. There was none of that in ‘Allo ‘Allo!. I don’t think there’s anything in there that would upset a normal person.
She added: “‘Allo ‘Allo! didn’t send up anyone in particular – we sent up everyone.
“It was a family show where the adults got the double entendres and the children just thought the situations were funny. You can see someone on telly in a bikini and their boobs out.”
Let’s look at it another way. If Blazing Saddles were shown on television now, it would only be seven minutes long:
Free speech, Salman Rushdie and the average Twitter user
Along with many millions, I hope that Sir Salman Rushdie is making a steady recovery from his attack less than a fortnight ago.
Conservative commentator Emma Webb told Andrew Doyle on his show last night (see video above) that no publisher would dare print anything like Satanic Verses today. Publishing houses are self-censoring, as if there were a blasphemy law in place:
This year, a few high-profile arrests have been made in the UK with regard to tweets that have caused other Twitter users ‘anxiety’. Not long ago, a middle-aged man was pinned down by five police officers in his garden, so it is a bit rich of Boris Johnson to come across as a big supporter of free speech in Salman Rushdie’s case when the average Joe is being arrested for lesser offences:
On that subject, lefty lawyer Jolyon Maugham rightly condemned the attack on Rushdie, then asked who has a platform on which to speak.
Well, I do wonder.
A reply to Maugham’s tweet told the raw truth of the matter. The Left used to advocate free speech when they thought theirs was censored. Now that the leftist point of view is ubiquitous, they censor any opposing view:
Scarily, this clampdown extends to health issues now.
Censorship of coronavirus vaccine opposition
The truckers’ protest in Ottawa in February showed how draconian censorship can get.
The men and women were protesting against the Canadian government for mandating coronavirus vaccines as a condition of employment. Justin Trudeau took the extraordinary action of freezing some protesters’ — and contributors’ — bank accounts.
On March 8, The Spectator‘s Jane Stannus wrote an excellent article about this, just as Premier Justin Trudeau visited the UK: ‘Where’s the outrage over Trudeau’s trip to Britain?’
She wrote:
Trudeau used the Emergencies Act to allow banks to unilaterally freeze accounts and assets, not only of participants in the peaceful Ottawa freedom convoy but also of anyone who supported the protest financially – all without a court order and legal immunity. And insurance policies of participants were subject to cancellation. Nothing says ‘free country’ like being able to freeze the assets of your political opponents without notice, judicial oversight, or possibility of legal recourse, on suspicion of having donated $25 to a trucker who parked in front of Canada’s parliament because he didn’t want the government to take away his job.
Perhaps this seems unfair. Trudeau may have invoked the never-before-used Emergencies Act to resolve a parking problem. An error in judgement, but in the end he rescinded it.
Quite true. But not before he suspended Canadians’ rights to due process and to peaceful assembly. Or delayed the Act’s debate in the Canadian House of Commons until after the protestors were forcibly removed by police. Or cynically strong-armed its approval through the House of Commons via a confidence vote – cleverly changing the subject of the vote to whether or not MPs wanted to call an election. And remember too that he hinted that the Act would be needed for months to come. Can the country ever be considered truly safe when – at any time – a truck driver apparently going about his business might approach the heart of Canada’s capital city and run up the Canadian flag, thereby magically metamorphosising into a terrorist?
Trudeau lifted the Emergencies Act on 23 February when it became apparent that the Canadian Senate was likely to vote against it. The next day, Russia attacked Ukraine and both national and international attention turned elsewhere – doubtless to the Liberal government’s great relief.
But anyone who thinks Trudeau has learned his lesson is sadly naïve. In a speech to the Toronto Ukrainian community on 4 March, he had the audacity to deplore the ‘slippage in our democracies’ and express concern about countries around the world ‘turning towards slightly more authoritarian leaders’. Why is this happening? According to Trudeau, it’s because ‘misinformation and disinformation’ are allowed to be shared on social media, thus ‘turning people against the values and the principles of democracies’. Right. To preserve democracy, what we need is censorship?
For all Trudeau’s talk, the real threat to Canadian democracy is not the truckers’ movement, whose actions revealed that large numbers of Canadians just want a return to normal life. No: the real threat to democracy is Canada’s ideologically driven leadership, seizing more and ever more unchecked power so as to force Canadian society into the mould of a collectivist utopia. It would be nice if the British parliament cared enough to discuss it.
Lord Ridley — Matt Ridley — pointed out that it was quite the opposite for the British parliament with regard to President Donald Trump. MPs wanted to ban Trump for ‘hate speech’:
When Trump came to the UK, neither House of Parliament extended him an invitation.
Yet, when Trudeau uttered real hate speech against people who did not want to be vaccinated, that was A-okay with our parliamentarians:
Fortunately, he was not invited to address Parliament.
He did, however, address EU parliamentarians in Brussels. A German MEP, Christine Anderson, took strong exception to Trudeau’s actions over the truckers’ protest and pointed out his love of Chinese coronavirus policies.
This very short video is a must-watch. Anderson’s English is flawless in every respect:
I don’t know what the reaction was, but at least she said it and he was there to hear it.
GB News’s Mark Steyn has been interviewing British family members of those who have died from the coronavirus vaccine and have been receiving compensation (£100,000) from the British Government.
Unfortunately, many are heartbroken as they share their stories on Twitter and other social media platforms. Not only do they get harsh feedback from readers accusing them of lying, but the social media moderators accuse these people of peddling mis- or disinformation.
This has been going on not only in the UK, but also in other Western countries.
Alexandra Marshall, the editor of the online edition of The Spectator in Australia, says the censorship is taking place because the push to get people to take potentially harmful vaccines has been a ‘global error’, one that, in some countries, could result in class action lawsuits. This catastrophic failure is too big to fail and no politician wants to jeopardise his or her career by facing a legitimate pushback from citizens. This video is from May 11:
The Online Safety Bill
Meanwhile, our Conservative Government has put forward a potentially damaging Online Safety Bill, notionally designed to protect the most vulnerable but which, in reality, will ‘protect’ — restrict — everyone else.
Nadine Dorries, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said that she wanted to stop social media ‘pile-ons’. It’s like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Guido Fawkes explains in a Twitter thread:
Who is going to define what a ‘pile-on’ actually is?
And will different rules apply online and offline? Think of newspapers:
On May 11, Kathy Gyngell, editor of The Conservative Woman, wrote:
YESTERDAY marked a black day in British history. It was the most repressive Queen’s Speech ever. A reversal of Britain’s centuries-long march to freedom.
It contained not one, but a number of ‘innovative’ measures that threaten to curtail our basic rights, including our freedom of speech and movement, under the guise of what are, I am afraid, spurious claims to reform the law and protect us.
The proposed new Bill of Rights and a series of other state interventionist and regressive measures will make it harder for any who ‘dissent’ the official narrative – whether on ‘pandemic’ policy, vaccine risks or further lockdowns – to air and share their critiques and evidence, or to publicly protest against such curtailing of our rights.
The Bill of Rights is set to replace current Human Rights law in the name of curbing an incremental rights culture. However, it will quite specifically undermine, if not take away, individual choice and responsibility when and where it is deemed to conflict with the State’s definition of the common good.
Back in March, I asked whether this was the reform of human rights we need? My answer was that it emphatically was not. I argued that the proposed legislation is a perversion of the traditional notions of rights and duties, and a mendacious and threatening one at that.
Who will decide what those broader interests of society may be? The Government, the World Health Organisation, or any other international public health body with undue influence over our political masters? The last two years of irrational lockdown and all but compulsory vaccination, all in the name of the higher public good, fills me with foreboding.
The proposed Online Safety Bill is also deeply worrying. Under its terms, ‘major social media firms will face fines worth up to ten per cent of their global turnover if they fail to tackle illegal content getting on to their sites under reintroduced duty of care plans to protect users from online harms’.
At the rate we at TCW are already being censored, under the notion of ‘harms’, this also bodes very ill for us and any other dissenting or free speech site …
The proposed Public Order Bill and its additional police powers, also in yesterday’s speech, again would be welcome if it was restricted to stopping eco-protesters blocking roads and inflicting fuel shortages on motorists, and not used against peaceful protest against government policy.
However, it will allow police to ban suspected troublemakers from attending specified events. Does that mean Piers Corbyn, for example? I defend his right to protest and so should anyone. Does it mean in fact any government critic or opponent could be singled out? How will it be interpreted? The degree to which the police are already politicised and discriminate does not augur well …
All this proposed new legislation needs to have a bright torch shone on it. We need to protest against it and remember those of centuries past who gave their lives for today’s, now to be curtailed, freedoms.
I could not agree more. It is difficult to believe that Conservatives have come up with this unholy intrusion into our lives and thoughts.
Labour have since said that they would take these laws even further once — or if — they are ever in power. We would do well to take them at their word.
On June 27, Lord Frost urged Conservatives to scrap the Online Safety Bill. The Daily Mail reported:
The Tory peer claims the Online Safety Bill contains so many flaws ‘it is hard to know where to start’.
He singles out for criticism the fact that it will outlaw comments on social media that would be legal in the real world.
Lord Frost, the former Brexit minister, says the move will be ‘highly damaging’ to free speech and will benefit only the ‘perennially offended’ who want to be protected from anything they disagree with.
He says: ‘A Conservative Government should not be putting this view into law. The best thing the Government could do would be to slim down the Bill so they can proceed rapidly with the genuinely uncontroversial aspects, and consign the rest where it belongs – the wastepaper basket.’
It is hoped that a new Prime Minister will sink this bill once and for all in September.
I certainly hope so. We have bigger worries right now.
My advice to social media users? If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
The 150th birthday of Speaker’s Corner
In late June, advocates of free speech gathered at London’s Speaker’s Corner to celebrate its 150th birthday.
The day before, police arrested a female Christian apologist at Speaker’s Corner because she wore a tee shirt with a Charlie Hebdo cartoon featuring an image many think should not see the light of day.
I do not know if this was the same lady who was brutally attacked with a knife there some months earlier for giving a defence of the Christian faith.
Toby Young, the General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, was at Speaker’s Corner on its 150th birthday and gave Mark Steyn his report, including one about the Christian lady:
Young pointed out that, in Victorian times — certainly leading up to the founding of Speaker’s Corner in 1872 and beyond — people were much more able to speak their minds than they are today.
Young lamented the fact that not many people were present at the 150th birthday celebration. Nor did the mainstream media cover such an important event.
He said that, if people want to read or hear free speech, they now have to go online.
Conclusion
The great irony in all of this censorship is that it took a Russian emigré to the UK to point it out.
Author, comedian and podcaster Konstantin Kisin is putting his views, personal and historical, into a book on the subject: An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the West.
On July 10, he discussed free speech with Andrew Doyle and told him that, right now:
We are in the late Soviet stage …
He went on to describe how his grandfather fell foul of this in Stalin’s Soviet Union. He lost his job and ended up in a gulag as a result.
Here’s the video:
It is sad that it takes an emigré to point out how far down the rabbit hole we are.
That said, thank goodness for Konstatin Kisin. I hope that people listen to him and read his book.
We must defend free speech at all costs.
Over the past month, Neil Oliver has had some exceptionally good Saturday night programmes on GB News.
While his shows are a must in my household, for those who haven’t been tuning in, his shows over the past month have contained even more insight than usual.
This video is from February 26, 2022, the week when Russia invaded Ukraine:
Oliver’s editorial begins at the 5:00 point. He rightly wonders what the invasion is really about. He says that he cannot rely on mainstream media to tell the truth.
However, he also discusses the situation in the West and says that we do not realise how exceptional our era of individual liberty and freedom over the past few decades has been.
He points out that we are taking it for granted.
Unfortunately, the pandemic has seen Western governments become authoritarian. He points to Justin Trudeau, who condemns Putin when he himself has had the bank accounts of protesting truckers frozen because they protested against mandatory vaccinations. Oliver says that the sheer hypocrisy of it all is stunning.
He also lambastes the leaders in New Zealand and Australia for authoritarian measures during the pandemic, making the point that, given mankind’s natural inclination towards dictatorial policies, Western leaders are happily following along. Therefore, we need to keep an eye on what they are doing and call them out accordingly.
He says that we need to get serious: stop worrying about identity politics and pronouns. Instead, we have our freedoms to defend.
At the 21:00 point, he interviews a journalist to discuss what is really happening in Ukraine. The journalist said that China is also a player in this situation. Although it looks to most people as if Russia and China are enemies, they have a common goal: to bring down the West.
At the 23:00 mark, welcomes Sebastian Gorka to give his views.
Gorka says that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine would not have happened had Joe Biden not pulled out of Afghanistan last year. He says that President Trump would have managed Afghanistan much differently and that, consequently, the Ukraine invasion would not have happened.
Gorka also brings up energy independence, which Trump initiated in the United States and warned Europe about in 2017. (Everyone laughed. They’re not laughing now.) Gorka said that it was ‘moronic’ for Biden to reverse Trump’s energy policy in the US.
On Biden, I was heartened to see another article in The Telegraph which has been critical of him.
On March 28, the paper’s Nile Gardiner asked, ‘Will Europe finally wake up to the truth about Joe Biden now?’
He writes (emphases mine):
It is amateur hour on the world stage from the Biden Presidency. His visit last week to Europe was a train wreck, from his bizarre press conference in Brussels to the ad-libbed final words of his speech in Warsaw.
At times Mr. Biden looked dazed and confused, struggling to command his sentences, and drifting into incoherence. The messaging was muddled, forcing even the president’s top officials to disown their own leader’s comments.
In 20 years in Washington, I have not seen a White House more disorganised, incompetent or mismanaged, in both the president’s and vice president’s office. It has a distinctly Monty Python-esque feel to it. Having visited the Trump White House on multiple occasions, and met with the former president several times, I can attest it was a model of efficiency compared to what we’re seeing now.
On no fewer than three separate occasions, Biden’s own staff had to clarify or even refute the words of their commander in chief. Biden officials had to explain to the world’s media that he was not calling for US troops to go into Ukraine, that the United States would not respond to Russia with chemical weapons if Moscow used them, and that the Biden administration was not seeking regime change in Moscow. These are big misstatements, not minor gaffes, with major global ramifications, and a direct impact on the war in Ukraine.
There is a major lack of discipline in messaging from the Biden administration, and clearly deep-seated divisions as well among policy staff. Biden himself has been stung by the charge from political opponents that he has been weak over Ukraine, as well as by sinking poll numbers, and is trying to overcompensate with tough rhetoric on Putin. His own aides are trying to rein him in. As a result, confusion reigns …
By contrast:
Donald Trump used to come under heavy fire from the French, Germans and European elites at Nato summits, and his message was not always popular. But he was far more effective than Joe Biden at getting results, increasing defence spending, and shaking up the complacent status quo in Europe.
True!
As Neil Oliver says, our leaders are not up to scratch.
Furthermore, we, the general public, must also stop being complacent about civil liberties and our Western freedoms. As we saw in the pandemic, our leaders can take them away instantly, without any qualms. Restoring them will take much longer.
No Briton in any position of influence likes President Donald Trump.
That outlook extends to 99% of the British middle classes.
Throughout Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I couldn’t help but think that, were President Trump still in the White House, Putin never would have dared to try it.
Finally, a British journalist has spoken up, saying the same thing.
Enter The Telegraph‘s Tim Stanley, a never-Trumper, who wrote ‘Trump was right on Russia. He could have been its deterrent’, published on Monday, March 7.
Excerpts follow, emphases mine:
Donald Trump is like one of those Roman emperors who everyone hated at the time but historians later admit was prophetic …
… Putin took Crimea in 2014, under Obama, and invaded Ukraine in 2022, under Biden, so it’s reasonable to guess that this invasion wouldn’t have happened under Trump because it didn’t.
Trump says this is because he told Putin he was ready to drop a bomb on Moscow (“he sort of believed me like 5 per cent or 10 per cent – that’s all you need”), which is embarrassing if a lie and terrifying if true, but it does fit with the substantive record of his administration.
This is a good contrast between the Obama and Trump administrations:
Obama resisted sending lethal aid to Ukraine; Trump did so. From 2017-19, the Trump administration carried out 52 policy actions against Russia, ranging from sanctions to military action against Putin’s client Bashar al-Assad. When Assad used chemical weapons under Obama, America did not reply with force. When he tried the same trick under Trump, Trump hit a Syrian airbase with 59 tomahawk missiles. Separately, US commandos engaged directly with Syrian soldiers and Russian mercenaries. The details were classified but the President bragged about it at a fundraiser.
Trump was also right about NATO:
Trump called out the bad; he mocked the pretensions of the good. At the 2018 Nato summit, he demanded that his allies spend more on the military and pointed out that they were buying energy from the very country, Russia, that they expected America to protect them from. The West wasn’t just sanctimonious, it was cheap and greedy, and its decadence was sapping its deterrence.
Contrary to what Trump haters say, he wanted NATO members to stump up their fair share of cash to keep it going. The US was — and still is — overwhelmingly funding NATO, although Germany has been doing better. Britain is in second place, after the US.
Although labelled as an isolationist, Trump went to the troubled areas and leaders of the world no other US president wanted to get involved with. He attempted to broker a deal with North Korea. He succeeded in the Middle East, with influential Arab countries and Israel. For all of his bellicosity, which these leaders respected, he was a man of peace, not war.
Stanley says:
Trump, despite being labelled an isolationist, stood in a long line of Republicans who asserted the best way to avoid a fight is to signal to your opponent that if they lay one finger on you, you’ll break their nose.
Stanley mentions the parlous state of affairs with Biden and other Western leaders:
… does anyone doubt that Biden’s incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan encouraged Russia to try its luck? Weakness escalates tensions; politicians typically try to extricate themselves from the resulting crises through over-reaction – to bomb North Vietnam or surge troops in Iraq – and now there is talk of imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine. If we don’t do it, says Zelensky, we are complicit in the murder of citizens. His anger is righteous. But the same Westerners who tell us Putin is insane and desperate can’t then advise us to risk nuclear war with him. When a house is on fire, we try to put it out: we don’t show our solidarity by burning down the whole street.
Stanley points out that Trump did not have time for idealism:
Another common notion is that the Ukrainians are defending the universal principle of “democracy”, when what they’re really fighting for is their homes. That’s a noble cause and we’re right to back them, but Trump regarded such ideological abstractions as artificial, expensive and best avoided. All nations are in competition, he would argue, regardless of political system, and their goals are shaped by history and geography. Russia wants, and will always want, a buffer zone to the West. Trump had no problem with that, in theory, and it was a mistake to needle Moscow with the threat of Nato extension.
On Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Stanley rightly concludes:
Given the obvious blow to Pax Americana that the invasion has inflicted, it’s hard to imagine that a second-term Trump would have tolerated it.
Too right!
Personally, I doubt that Trump will run again in 2024, although he might.
If he doesn’t, I hope that the Republican candidate adopts a similar position of toughness.
It’s the only language some world leaders understand.
Churchmouse Campanologist 