Labour Demands Thorough Investigation Into The Refurbishment Of Boris Johnson’s Downing Street Flat

Labour wielded Dominic Cummings explosive blogpost to demand an investigation into Boris Johnson’s refurbishment of his Downing Street flat.

No 10’s former chief adviser claimed to have advised the Prime Minister that using Tory contributions to foot the costs of the renovation was probably illegal.

Sir Keir Starmer said to publish the details, have a thorough inquiry, and if there’s nothing to see, have a full inquiry, and that every day there’s more evidence of the sleaze and that frankly, it stank.

Shadow cabinet minister Rachel Reeves wrote to Boris Johnson with fourteen questions Labour wanted answering, including why he didn’t pay for the renovations himself from the outset.

A statement from the Cabinet Office unveiled Boris Johnson has repaid the £58,000 donated by Tory peer Lord Brownlow of Shurlock Row.

It came before Dominic Cummings launched a devastating attack on his former boss that poured petrol on to the row over the No 11 flat decor scandal, and Dominic Cummings said that the Prime Minister quit talking to him about the matter in 2020 as he told him he believed his plans to have contributors surreptitiously finance the renovation were dishonest, absurd, probably illegal and almost certainly violated the rules on proper disclosure of political donations if conducted in the way he intended.

Downing Street said that the Government and ministers had acted under the proper codes of conduct and electoral law throughout, but Ms Reeves accused the Prime Minister of disregarding repeated questions on basic transparency.

The shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster added that during the last year the Government has been repeatedly evasive about who’s been paying for the refurbishment of the flat.

This month leaked emails revealed that Lord Brownlow had gifted the Tory party £58,000 that was earmarked for the renovation of the No 11 flat Boris Johnson shares with his fiancée Carrie Symonds and their son Wilfred.

Lord Brownlow wrote to the party’s head of fundraising, Mike Chattey that £58,000 to cover the payments the party has now made on behalf of the soon to be formed Downing Street Trust, of which he has been made chairman.

No such trust has yet been created and the Electoral Commission is in discussions with the party about the contributions.

A commission spokeswoman said that talks with the Conservative Party continue as they strive to ascertain whether any sums relating to the works at 11 Downing Street fall within the regime regulated by the commission and hence need to be reported and subsequently published and that the party was working with them on this.

So, rather than getting the taxpayer to foot the bill, Boris Johnson has got some rich people to finance it, which seems okay to me, but then politicians are a bit of a joke, they get all their expenses paid, right down to a Kit-Kat, and let’s hope his tower doesn’t come tumbling down.

And all this excitement over a bit of wallpaper and some cushions, which is all a little lame from Labour and I think they’ll find that nobody’s interested in this, and Sir Keir Starmer is going to have to work a tad harder at convincing everyone.

All the billions spent on COVID nonsense, all the billions given to Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP, which has vanished without a trace, and all that Labour can worry about is the redecoration of the Prime Minister’s flat, and when will Labour come up with some policies rather than asking for a money-wasting investigation?

Columbus Cop Who Fatally Shot Ma’Khia Bryant

It’s been reported that the Columbus cop who fatally shot Ma’Khia Bryant, a 16-year-old black girl, is in the Air National Guard where he received his expert marksman badge.

Nicholas Reardon shot Ma’Khia Bryant at about 4.45 pm on Tuesday on the 3100 block of Legion Lane while responding to a 911 call about an attempted stabbing – Bryant was allegedly seen charging at another girl with a knife before she was shot.

The shooting came after a court in Minneapolis, Minnesota found ex-police officer Derek Chauvin guilty on three charges including murder for the death of George Floyd.

Ma’Khia’s death sparked protests while others throughout the country celebrated the Derek Chauvin verdict.

A news outlet reported that Reardon, a graduate of Bishop Watterson Catholic school in Columbus, was a member of the school’s wrestling team and that while he attended Air Force basic combat training, the school posted updates on his progress.

The school indicated that Reardon graduated from basic combat training in August 2017 before attending the military’s Security Forces Tech School at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.

The Security Forces Academy teaches a 65-day course where students learn the basic functions of serving as military police, and a photo of Reardon in his uniform at the time indicated he completed training with a rank of Airman First Class.

His alma mater’s Twitter account said he earned the expert marksman badge for the M4A1 Carbine fully automatic assault rifle used by the military, and a news outlet also reported that Reardon appeared to be the son of a retired police Sergeant Edward Reardon.

According to the news outlet, Sergeant Edward Reardon worked with the Columbus Division of Police for 32 years and is also an Air Force veteran – he also served at the Columbus Police Academy’s basic training sergeant.

A Twitter account revealed in a post made in 2019 that Reardon’s father was honoured by an anchor during an Ohio State University football game.

The account tweeted that they were extremely proud of their friend Sergeant Ted Reardon who was recognised that day at the Ohio State Football game. Who they’d served with, in the USAF from 1984-1987 and @ColumbusPolice 1993 to the present.

The Columbus Police Department honoured Edward Reardon when he retired last year in a tweet noting that he trained more than 700 recruits, and the department tweeted that officers across Central Ohio would remember him for his love of Hallmark movies and his get in your face training.

But let’s get this clear, this is not the same as the George Floyd murder or most of the other cases we see come out from the US, on what seems like daily that the minorities are being disproportionately targeted, and the police are too quick to deploy deadly force.

This girl was lunging at another citizen with a knife and the police officer had to protect the life of that other girl. So, what was the alternative to deadly force in this situation?

There’s probably a story behind why the girl was being violent and it may have been out of character, but the police officer couldn’t stop and figure it all out within split seconds when lives are at risk in the moment.

But it does make me wonder why anyone would want to be a police officer now, and I couldn’t think of a more thankless job.

And if this cop was such a sharpshooter, why did he have to take a kill shot to stop her, why couldn’t he have shot to wound and incapacitate so that she could be apprehended and arrested.

So, is this a sane marksman who shot a girl completely dead, or was this an insane girl with a knife? Thankfully I live in a country that doesn’t kill its crazy kids, so it’s not a question I have to answer.

Her Loneliest Birthday

The Queen was observed riding through Windsor on her way to take her pooches for a walk as she marked her 95th birthday without her strength and stay for 73 years.

The monarch, who was recently gifted two new corgi puppies by Prince Andrew, was pictured leaving Windsor Castle in a green Jaguar Estate after the low key birthday festivities, thought to have included several family members and her most intimate aides.

In her first comments since Prince Philip’s passing, the monarch thanked well-wishers over the globe for the tributes given to her husband which have genuinely touched the royal household.

The Queen said she and her family were in a period of great sadness but were comforted by words of admiration for Philip, who died peacefully at Windsor aged 99, and the Queen said in a statement that she had on the occasion of her 95th birthday today, received numerous messages of good wishes, which she very much appreciated.

The Queen said that while as a family they were in a period of great sorrow, it’s been a comfort to them all to see and to hear the tributes paid to her husband, from those within the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth and throughout the world.

She then continued that her family and herself would like to thank everyone for all their support and kindness shown and that they’d been genuinely touched, and continued to be reminded that Philip had such an amazing impact on countless people throughout his life.

Buckingham Palace shared a photo of the steadfast monarch at a royal appointment with a message wishing her a happy birthday, and rather than sharing their own posts, Prince Charles and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s Instagram accounts reposted the radiant photo of Her Majesty.

Celebrations have been subdued this year with no traditional gun salutes while the Queen observes a two week grieving period following the passing of her husband the Duke of Edinburgh at the age of 99.

The Queen was supposed to be visited by family but grandson Prince Harry was not to be amongst them, as he returned home to California from London, only 24 hours before his grandmother’s birthday and two days after his grandfather’s funeral, and it’s such a shame that her grandson Harry couldn’t stay a few days longer to wish her a personal happy birthday.

But then on the other hand, perhaps he was told he wasn’t invited. After all, why would they keep him around – they’d have to watch everything they said, as it would probably be reported again.

Edward the VIII abdicating didn’t just change the Queen’s life, it altered world history, and considering the position was thrust into her path, she not only took it upon herself to fulfil her responsibilities but excelled in them.

The Duke of Edinburgh was constantly portrayed as the person who could throw shade like nobody’s business, and he always loved to make smart-aleck comments, but most often, he deployed that ridicule to relax people when they were around the Queen.

But he was always portrayed as that constantly smirking, constantly disgruntled man, but the real man was more of a well-liked gentleman, who completely embraced his role over his 70 years of marriage to the Queen.

Although there were always whispers that the Duke had liaisons with other women, which is quite spicy, but there’s never been any firm confirmation that this was true.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh clearly loved one another, either that, or they just put on a good show, although I would guess the latter was more likely, and even with all that money they have, it all boils down to a case of an older lady losing her husband to death, and now having to live without him for the first time in a very long time.

Cop Derek Chauvin Is Taken To Maximum Security Prison

Derek Chauvin was last night taken to a maximum-security prison and put on suicide watch after being found guilty on all three counts of murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd.

As the verdict was read out Derek Chauvin looked on with no apparent emotion in the Hennepin County courtroom, where jurors spent three weeks listening to testimony about the day George Floyd died, under the weight of a 45-year-old officer’s knee, during an arrest on May 25, 2020.

The jury delivered its verdict after just ten and a half hours of deliberation to find Dereck Chauvin guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

Derek Chauvin was taken in handcuffs from the courtroom as Judge Peter Cahill promptly dismissed his bail pending sentencing. He was transferred to Oak Park Heights, Minnesota’s only maximum-security prison.

Derek Chauvin faces a minimum sentence of 12.5 years and a maximum of 40 years if he serves terms for each charge concurrently. If served consecutively, he faces between 29 and 75 years.

No prisoner has ever escaped from Oak Park Heights which houses about 500 of the most dangerous prisoners in the country, 25 miles east of Minneapolis, on the border with Wisconsin.

Derek Chauvin is being closely watched by guards at the prison to ensure his safety, not only as a suicide risk but also from other prisoners with violent criminal histories.

Jim Bruton, former warden of Oak Park Heights, described in his 2004 book about the prison, how the hierarchy among prisoners was determined by the offence committed.

At the top of the scale are those who have killed a law enforcement officer. At the bottom are sex offenders, with child molesters deemed the lowest of the low.

The hierarchy, coupled with Derek Chauvin’s notoriety as a police officer, means he will undoubtedly need bolstered protection.

Applause rose from the crowds that had assembled outside the courthouse and down at the intersection of 38th and Chicago, now known as George Floyd Square.

Cup Foods, the store in which George Floyd was last seen alive, shuttered its doors ahead of the ruling, and Joe Biden told the nation that the verdict conveys the message that no one is above the law, as he demanded new action to honour George Floyd after a killing he called a stain on the nation’s soul.

There’s no way they’ll let him into general population because he’ll be killed in seconds. Instead, he’ll get off with a cushy cell, and watched over like he’s an ex-cop.

Of course, George Floyd was no angel either, but that doesn’t mean he should have died, and it certainly doesn’t give a keeper of the law the power to kill him in broad daylight.

The thing is, most people out there aren’t angels by any stretch of the imagination but do they all deserve to die slowly in the street? And does it mean that every police officer has the right to go and be the judge, jury and executioner of someone’s life?

And the issue isn’t if George Floyd was an angel or not, and perhaps he did have a bit of a shady past, but in no way does that justify him being killed by a police officer.

George Floyd was in handcuffs, face on the ground with many other police officers with tasers and guns in attendance. I mean, where was this man going? What risk did he pose? Had he been discharging a gun or was he even endangering anyone with a knife?

No, George Floyd was pleading for his life, saying that he couldn’t breathe, as Chauvin took his power pleasure out on him, showing his peers and the people present just what a tough guy he could be, as all in attendance over nine long minutes watched him beg for his life, pleading not to die, and it’s far time people realised that the tone of your skin does not dictate criminality, just because you’re a different colour, or even a different race or religion.

Chauvin’s career was not squeaky clean and he should have been fired a long time ago, and it’s a disgrace that he wasn’t, because George Floyd would have been alive today, and all because he was attempting to pass a fake twenty-dollar bill.

And why are we getting all this dramatisation over Chauvin? When this is standard procedure for new prisoners at a maximum-security prison in the US.

Get Out Of My Pub!

Sir Keir Starmer was forced out of a pub after being faced by a Labour-supporting landlord enraged that he supported the lockdown which had closed his business for months, and in surprising scenes in Bath, Rod Humphris, the lockdown sceptic proprietor of the Raven, had to be held back by the Opposition Leader’s security guards as he demanded he leave, yelling ‘that man isn’t allowed in my pub’ and ‘get out of my pub’.

The event was caught on camera by anchors amid a visit to the city to support West of England metro mayoral candidate Dan Norris ahead of the impending polls.

The bust-up comes as the Labour leader’s notoriety amongst electors has fallen to its most profound level and Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour grapples in the polls, amid a swell in support for Boris Johnson’s Conservatives, boosted by the vaccine rollout, with the Tories enjoying a 14 point poll lead.

Mr Humphris clashed with Sir Keir Starmer outside the Raven, blaming him for having failed to be the opposition by supporting the lockdown and backing plans to make schoolchildren wear masks.

And as the politician paused the landlord waved a piece of paper at him, saying: ‘Do you know what the average age of death with Covid is?

‘According to the Office for National Statistics, it’s 82 years and three months. The average age of death normally? Eighty-one years.

‘Do you understand we have f***ed our economy because old people are dying?’

As Sir Keir Starmer tried to walk away he continued: ‘ No, no I came here to speak to this man, not your security.

‘You have failed me. I have been a Labour voter my entire life. You have failed to be the opposition.

‘You have failed to ask whether lockdown was functioning. Do you understand? Thousands of people have died because you have failed to do your job and ask the real questions.’

Finally, Sir Keir Starmer stopped and confronted him, pointing out the work done by the NHS in the pandemic, including his wife Victoria, who’s a nurse.

He said that they’d been overwhelmed with cases, adding that they’ve been on the front line keeping people alive and that he didn’t need lectures from him about the pandemic, and he thanked him and asked if they should go inside.

This prompted the scenes in which Mr Humphris demanded the Labour leader leave the pub, but he really shouldn’t have wasted his breath because like the vast preponderance of Labour politicians and Conservatives alike, they couldn’t care less about the impact the last year has had on people and their businesses, but at least this landlord showed his opposition, more than Sir Keir Starmer ever did.

Colorado Judge Resigns

A judge in Colorado who repeatedly said the n-word when asking a black co-worker why white people can’t use the term is stepping down from the bench.

The Supreme Court of Colorado said on Friday that they’d accepted the resignation of the 18th Judicial District’s Natalie T Chase, which will be effective in 45 days after her notice.

Natalie T Chase further faced several other complaints about her behaviour in the courtroom and with co-workers, with many claims of racist and improper behaviour made against her.

Her Friday resignation comes after the state Supreme Court criticised her following a report that determined she weakened confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary by expressing her beliefs about criminal justice, police brutality, race and racial prejudice, specifically while wearing her robe in court, staff work areas and from the bench.

According to the court, Natalie T Chase admitted in early 2020, she was driving back from a programme with a Family Court Facilitator when she asked the co-worker, who is black, why black people can use the n-word, but not white people.

Natalie T Chase, who is white, also asked whether the word is different when it ends in an ‘er’ or an ‘a’, and used the full word several times.

The court’s opinion wrote that the Family Court Facilitator was uncomfortable because she couldn’t leave the vehicle or leave the conversation.

The Family Court Facilitator felt angry and troubled by the discussion, and she explained that Judge Chase’s use of the full n-word was like a stab through her heart each time.

The opinion read that the Family Court Facilitator didn’t feel free to express her discomfort or emotions due to fear of reprisal by Judge Chase, and it noted that Judge Chase acknowledged that she infringed Canon Rule 1.2, which requires judges to serve in a way that promotes public confidence on the bench.

In another incident, while Judge Chase was sitting on her bench, she asked two black court workers in May 2020 to explain the Black Lives Matter movement after she overheard them discussing the demonstrations in Denver over the death of George Floyd.

And how can an intelligent college-educated woman not realise how that word is not hurtful and demeaning.

It’s fair to ask the question, but she must have realised it was a terrible word when she said it, particularly in her position as a judge – but why are some people permitted to use the word and others are not? Perhaps it’s because words have consequences, and you would assume that a judge would be smart enough to recognise this.

Three Police Officers Who Seized Uninsured £150,000 Bentley Continental Took It For An Unauthorised Ride

Three police officers who seized a Bentley Continental from an uninsured driver took it for an unauthorised drive up and down the dual carriageway before impounding it.

Hertfordshire PCs Lewis Mack, Sam Butler and Ian Gould jumped into the Bentley when it was decided it had to be taken back to the police station because the motorist didn’t have insurance.

But after setting off they went on a detour, driving up and down the dual carriageway and taking it in turns to get behind the steering wheel.

Unknown to the trio the Bentley Continental GT V8 had a tracker fitted to it and its owner, who was not the man driving it that night, had an app on his phone enabling him to follow its route, and he could see they’d taken a detour before taking the vehicle back to Cheshunt Police Station in Hertfordshire.

While the three officers were in the station and preparing to finish their shift they discovered he’d made a complaint to the police.

The officers appeared before a misconduct hearing on Friday following a two-day hearing earlier in the week, to hear that the panel had determined their behaviour that night amounted to gross misconduct.

Chairman of the panel, Akbar Khan, told PCs Lewis Mack, Sam Butler and Ian Gould that public confidence and faith in the police force would have been significantly undermined by their conduct, and Mr Khan told the officers that they’d not dismissed them and that the final written warning will continue for two years.

The hearing had been told how late on the night of May 29 last year the black Bentley Continental was stopped as it moved north on the A10 towards Cheshunt because it wasn’t displaying its lights.

A new Bentley Continental GT V8 retails for more than £150,000.

Several police officers attended the scene, including the three PCs who were all part of Hertfordshire Police’s Operation Scorpion team, a proactive unit that targets burglars, robbers and those involved in drug and vehicle-related crime.

Roadside checks revealed the motorist wasn’t insured to drive the vehicle, and after he handed the keys over, it was decided the vehicle would be driven to the rear yard at Cheshunt Police Station where it would be collected by a recovery vehicle.

There’s no doubt about it, this band of policemen got caught with their trousers down, but why on earth were they not dismissed? And where was the integrity of these officers? And what if they’d wrecked the car in the process?

And of course, I can understand the temptation, but only genuine idiots would have done this! And they acted illegally, speeding as they went joyriding, and taking a vehicle out without permission, and they should have received bans, fines and dismissal.

And is the driver going to be prosecuted, and his two mates for aiding and abetting – oh yes, I forgot, it’s a two-tier system in this country – them and us!

UK Warships Will Set Sail For The Black Sea Within Weeks

According to a report, British warships will sail for the Black Sea in May amid mounting tensions between Ukraine and Russia.

A news outlet reported, citing senior naval sources that the deployment is aimed at showing solidarity with Ukraine and Britain’s NATO allies.

According to the report, the One Type 45 destroyer outfitted with anti-aircraft missiles and an anti-submarine Type 23 frigate will leave the Royal Navy’s carrier task group in the Mediterranean and travel through the Bosphorus into the Black Sea.

The report added that the RAF F-35B Lightning stealth jets and Merlin submarine-hunting helicopters will stand ready on the task group’s flagship, the carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, to support the warships in the Black Sea.

While the Ministry of Defence insists the pre-planned deployment is routine, it comes at a time of heightened concerns of conflict between Russia and Ukraine which has seen a build-up of Russian troops along the border and clashes in eastern Ukraine between the army and pro-Russian separatists.

Last week, Vladimir Putin heightened fears of a possible Russian attack by ordering the blockade of the strategically important Kerch Strait.

Russian warships moved into a place to control the strait on Friday, cutting off sea access to Ukraine’s southeastern coastline and eastern Crimea.

The Kremlin confirmed all foreign and Ukrainian military vessels will be forbidden to travel from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov for the next six months, although commercial vessels won’t be affected.

The blockade was announced a day after President Joe Biden cancelled plans to send two American destroyers to the Black Sea for fear of escalating tensions.

UK defence chiefs confirmed six Roy Air Force Typhoon super jets will travel to eastern Europe as part of another pre-planned mission.

The Typhoons will be supported by troops from the RAF’s No 1 Expeditionary Logistics Squadron and No 2 Mechanical Transport Squadron – they’re deploying from bases in the United Kingdom this week and will patrol the skies around the Black Sea.

A ministry spokesperson told a news outlet that the UK government was working closely with Ukraine to monitor the situation and continued to call on Russia to de-escalate.

The newspaper cited the spokesperson as saying that the United Kingdom and our international allies were steadfast in their support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Here we go again – we just don’t seem to be able to keep our beaks out of the war trough, and it’s not our fight.

Bungling Ambulance Crew Discharge Coronavirus Survivor

An inept ambulance crew discharged an 89-year-old coronavirus survivor to a random stranger’s home and tucked her into their bed.

Elizabeth Mahoney had been battling COVID 19 at County Hospital in Pontypool for ten weeks, and her family were naturally extremely relieved to discover she’d finally been given a discharge date of Friday, March 12.

But they began to get concerned when she failed to show up at her home in nearby New Inn at the scheduled time.

It was only after a frantic few hours that it transpired she’d instead been taken by ambulance to an address in Newport, more than eight miles away from where she lived and left in the bed of a stranger.

Her son Brian Mahoney said, from Cwmbran that the entire thing was a catalogue of mistakes from start to finish, and he said that they’d originally been called at around 1 pm on that day and told that their mother was on her way home, so Brian’s wife went over there to welcome her.

But about an hour later he phoned to see what was occurring and was told she hadn’t turned up.

Brian then phoned the hospital, only to be told there’d been a bit of a problem, and he said that his mother had suffered a stroke not so long ago, so naturally they were worried something serious had happened to her.

At approximately 3.40 pm he finally got a call saying she’d been taken to a house in Newport, but that the details weren’t very clear.

The 65-year-old warehouse manager added that a subsequent conversation with someone from the ambulance service revealed that Elizabeth had been put to bed at the property.

They apologised to Brian and told him they were on their way to pick her back up, but he asked what they meant, and said please don’t tell me you’ve left her there, at which point his sister broke into tears – they were all worried sick.

Brian said that, while he was still awaiting an official explanation, he believed his mum’s details were confused with those of a female patient with dementia who was also scheduled to go home from the hospital on that same day.

And he said that as far as he could tell, his mother was taken to this other lady’s house by mistake, and somehow, whoever answered the door told the ambulance staff to take her into the bedroom and make her comfortable, but he said that how they failed to notice it wasn’t their relative, he couldn’t say, but apparently, they went to check on her a little while later and that’s when the penny eventually dropped and the alarm was raised.

Elizabeth was then re-admitted to hospital, although Brian said that his mother initially wanted to come straight home, but they insisted she go back in to get checked out, especially after having just had coronavirus, and because they had no idea who’s house she’d been taken to and what it was like.

Brian has blamed his mother’s terrified and bewildered state for her failure to point out the mix up as it was happening, and he said that his mother was a pretty quiet woman anyhow, and had been on her own since his dad had died in 2019. However, she did tell them later that she couldn’t work out why she was being called by a different name.

And also, given the woman she’d been mistaken for has dementia, their guess is any endeavour to point out it wasn’t her house was probably put down to her being a tad confused, but who knows, she may have even looked at the unfamiliar surroundings and thought they’d decided to put her into a care home, but it had all been tragic.

Sounds like an episode of ‘One Foot In The Grave’, mind you, the fact that this person had been in hospital with COVID for weeks can’t be seen as humorous at all, but this might be occurring more than we’d like to think – another triumphant success managed extremely well by the NHS!

I’m sure this has probably happened before, but then what do you expect from the NHS that’s so desperate to get rid of them, anywhere will do.

Hunt For Labour’s Downing Street Moles

Senior Tory sources claim that a labyrinth of Labour Party spies has been operating at the core of Whitehall, feeding confidential information to Sir Keir Starmer’s team to destabilise the Government.

The moles – Labour sympathising civil servants, are believed to have played a pivotal part in triggering the lobbying scandal which has enabled Sir Keir Starmer’s party to construct a narrative of Tory sleaze by leaking details of David Cameron’s contacts with Ministers and officials.

They’re also suspected of using leaks to try to sabotage the Brexit withdrawal negotiations last year and to provide advance notification to the Labour leader about Government plans in the pipeline, giving him time to structure his responses.

The Tory spy hunters believe a cell of Labour supporters, centred in the Cabinet Office, was activated last year after Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s former senior adviser in No 10, declared that a hard rain was coming for the Civil Service as part of proposed reforms to break up Whitehall’s grip on the establishment.

Dominic Cummings is a long-standing critic of the Whitehall establishment, describing the permanent Civil Service as an idea for the history books and proposing the abolition of senior civil servants positions.

Shortly after entering Downing Street in 2019, he became entangled in a power struggle with Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill, which ultimately led to Sir Mark being succeeded by the Duke of Cambridge’s former private secretary, Simon Case.

Deputy Cabinet Secretary Helen MacNamara also left, along with two other departmental permanent secretaries reportedly on a Cummings hit list – Sir Philip Rutnam at the Home Office and Sir Simon McDonald at the Foreign Office.

These Whitehall battles were being fought as the narrative broke about Dominic Cummings infamous 260 mile trip from London to his parents home in Durham during the lockdown, leading some sources to speculate at the time that dark forces had been behind the exposé.

Disruptive leaks from inside No 10 quickly began appearing in sympathetic media outlets, such as the revelation in the Financial Times last September that the Government was preparing legislation that would breach international law by letting the United Kingdom unilaterally rewrite parts of the Brexit departure agreement.

The story wrought havoc with Downing Street’s negotiation policy just as the Brexit talks were entering a critical stage, and Dominic Cummings was himself expelled from No 10 later in that year amid the fallout from an internal power struggle with the Prime Minister’s fiancee, Carrie Symonds, but by then, the well had been poisoned.

But all of this appears to be just to solely accumulate more sympathy, and for the dull tediousness of Boris Johnson, especially now he no longer has Dominic Cummings doing his reasoning for him.

And it wouldn’t shock me at all if the Marxists have plants all over the place because there’s always someone with an axe to grind, and there’s no such thing as a loyal servant these days.

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