[Malcolm Armsteen]

About time this has its own thread, it's all kicked off today with the evidence of PPS and PS at Nº10.

Marty Reynolds (Party Marty - 'bring your own booze', 'no it's OK I can run the inquiry on the parties', 'oh shit...') has been dropping shit from a great altitude onto Johnson and especially Cummings, but also Williamson and especially Hancock.

It seems that (completely coincidentally) just before Johnson announced a Covid enquiry Marty changed all the WhatsApp group preferences to 'disappearing messages' so that incriminating stuff would all be automatically deleted after 7 days... However he seems to have a faulty memory, he can't remember such things. And anyway it was all Simon Case's fault.

It seems that Johnson didn't realise his WhatsApp messages and emails could be archived and seen later, in an enquiry. There is evidence that Reynolds was going to 'battle' him over this, but he now doesn't remember.

Asked why Johnson did not chair the early COBRA meetings Marty couldn't remember. When asked if anyone was tracking the risks Marty said that was someone else's job.

An exchange on that:

Q - Keith KC: Did you not feel it was you job to educate yourself on the issues and take part in this debate?

Reynolds says it was not self-evident to him that having the health secretary chair the meeting was wrong.

Keith says he was not saying it was wrong for Hancock to chair the meeting. He asks why Reynolds was not getting more information himself.

Reynolds says, looking at the email exchange, he cannot tell what questions he was asking.

Keith asks Reynolds to confirm that in early March No 10 did not have plans to deal with a Covid pandemic.

Reynolds says he is not expert enough to say what plans were there, but structures were in place.

Q: But there was no proper plan in place?

After being pressed on this forcefully, Reynolds accepts this.

Here is how the key exchange went.

Keith asked:
The reality at the beginning of March after four or five weeks of warnings was it became apparent that there was no plan in the form of the NHS or the GHSE for dealing with a coronavirus pandemic, yes or no?
Reynolds replied:

Reynolds:
I think the plan wasn’t sophisticated enough to deal with the crisis it was facing, I don’t think I can answer whether there was no plan.

Keith continued:
There was no plan for coronavirus, was there, Mr Reynolds? You know there wasn’t.
You know as a matter of strategy there had never been any debate about coronavirus – the United Kingdom’s strategy was based expressly on a pandemic influenza. Do you agree there was no plan for coronavirus?

Reynolds replied:
I’m not sufficiently expert to say whether the plans which were pre-existing were replicable for the nature of the crisis … and to what extent.

Keith went on:
In Number 10, there was an appreciation at the beginning of March that there were no plans to bring together activities of the other government departments, yes or no?

Reynolds responded:
We had the existing structures and they were inadequate for what we were dealing with …

Keith interrupted:
Did you have plans to deal with the crisis which had broken upon the United Kingdom government in the first week in March?”

And Reynolds replied:
As I say, there is a standard set of protocols, which is Cabinet Office protocols for dealing with crisis – where I agree with you is they were inadequate to deal with the nature of the crisis we were confronted with.

To be continued...

[Malcolm Armsteen]

The Guardian's summary of the day's testimony:

Boris Johnson had a 10-day break in February 2020 during which he appeared to receive no messages from his team at No 10 about coronavirus, the Covid inquiry heard today. The claim was made by Hugo Keith KC, counsel for the inquiry, and it was not denied by Martin Reynolds, Johnson’s principal private secretary at the time. (See 12.43pm.) Reynolds was giving evidence for most of the day and, although he seemed reluctant to criticise Johnson strongly, he did not say anything that countered the claim that Johnson was unduly complacent about the risk of Covid in January, February and early March 2020. Reynolds suggested that Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s former chief adviser, who is giving evidence tomorrow, was to blame for some of the dysfunctionality in No 10. (See 11.33am.) Reynolds also said he could not remember why he turned on the disappearing function for messages in a No 10 WhatsApp group shortly before the Covid inquiry was announced (see 11.08am) and, after being pressed repeatedly by Keith, he eventually admitted No 10 did not have a proper plan for Covid in place by early March 2020 (see 12.55pm). During the hearing private WhatsApp messages not previously published were disclosed confirming that Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, was driven to despair by Johnson’s dithering. (See 2.15pm and 3.05pm.) Imran Shafi, a more junior private secretary working for Johnson at the time, also gave evidence, and he said No 10 should have spent every day in February working on a detailed Covid plan. (See 3.58pm.) The inquiry heard that in March, shortly before the full lockdown was announced, in a meeting between Johnson and Rishi Sunak, the then chancellor, one of the participants asked what was the point of having an economy-destorying lockdown “for people who will die anyway soon”. Asked who had used the phrase, Shafi said he was not sure, but thought it had been Johnson.

[Boiler]

Pity I'm working tomorrow: I'd love to see Cummings get his comeuppance from Hugo Keith but I suspect he won't turn up.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

John's on Marty's case:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... are_btn_tw

It was always going to be a high-risk strategy to summon Martin Reynolds to give evidence to the Covid inquiry first thing on a Monday morning. Boris Johnson’s former permanent private secretary may look every inch the unassuming senior civil servant in his crisp grey suit, but scratch the surface and there’s a total beast lurking. “Party Marty”. The “Karaoke King”. The last man standing on any dancefloor. One pill makes him larger, one pill makes him small. And the ones his mother gives him don’t do anything at all. The only good weekend is a lost weekend.

But Party Marty just about made it to the witness box in time to mumble his name and take the oath. It helps to have partied hard if there’s a great deal you would rather forget. If you can remember what happened in No 10 during lockdown then you probably weren’t there. The lead counsel for the inquiry, Hugo Keith KC, wasn’t in a particularly forgiving mood.

[Boiler]

And a comment from that which I think will foretell the outcome of this enquiry:

Screenshot 2023-10-30 at 19-25-14 It’s all a bit of a purple haze as ‘Party Marty’ takes the witness stand John Crace.png (10.69 KiB) Viewed 14740 times

[Malcolm Armsteen]

[Abernathy]

Beelzebub on a bin lorry, this enquiry is getting right to the fucking nub now, with Cummings, the arrogant little wankstain, and others revealing the full extent of the whole shitshow while being ridiculously self-justificatory.

The thing is, this is all stuff we already knew about (if you were paying attention), and yet it’s still absolutely shocking to hear about.

I hope the voters are paying close attention, instead of not worrying about Keir Starmer failing to demand a fucking ceasefire in Gaza, or nonexistent wars on motorists, or saying what a woman is.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Aktion T4

[Crabcakes]

Given their polling, Brexit and a pandemic appears to be nature’s way of dealing with the Conservative Party.

[davidjay]

Beelzebub on a bin lorry, this enquiry is getting right to the fucking nub now, with Cummings, the arrogant little wankstain, and others revealing the full extent of the whole shitshow while being ridiculously self-justificatory.

The thing is, this is all stuff we already knew about (if you were paying attention), and yet it’s still absolutely shocking to hear about.

I hope the voters are paying close attention, instead of not worrying about Keir Starmer failing to demand a fucking ceasefire in Gaza, or nonexistent wars on motorists, or saying what a woman is.

And you know, we all know, that they won't.

[Boiler]

I hope the voters are paying close attention, instead of not worrying about Keir Starmer failing to demand a fucking ceasefire in Gaza, or nonexistent wars on motorists, or saying what a woman is.

Try reading the BTL comments on the Mail, Abers - many don't give a flying fuck about this and just want to know why we're wasting money on it, lining lawyers' pockets etc.

Thee an' me might want to find a petrol station with an overhead gantry and some rope, whilst in the loft Boiler's Cricket Bat of Justice and Retribution rattles whenever a certain tedious cocksocket with a novel approach to eye tests appears... but most just don't fucking care.

[Youngian]

You’re never too old to acquire some wisdom.

[Crabcakes]

Try reading the BTL comments on the Mail, Abers - many don't give a flying fuck about this and just want to know why we're wasting money on it, lining lawyers' pockets etc.

Thee an' me might want to find a petrol station with an overhead gantry and some rope, whilst in the loft Boiler's Cricket Bat of Justice and Retribution rattles whenever a certain tedious cocksocket with a novel approach to eye tests appears... but most just don't fucking care.

With respect, this is not the population you want to look at. There’ll be shitposters and bots aplenty, as well as genuine diehard loons. The actual shift won’t show in the Mail comments, but might start to register in the next round of polls. And yes, it is all stuff we already knew - but the Tories saying it about each other is different.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Helen MacNamara was the civil servant responsible for setting up the Leveson Inquiry. Just sayin'.

[Youngian]

With respect, this is not the population you want to look at. There’ll be shitposters and bots aplenty, as well as genuine diehard loons. The actual shift won’t show in the Mail comments, but might start to register in the next round of polls.

The shift has already registered in mid-Bedfordshire. If polls don’t narrow, as they traditionally do as the GE draws closer, the Tories are in trouble everywhere apart from their die hard redoubts like South Essex and the Lincolnshire Fens.

[Tubby Isaacs]

And Herefordshire, sadly. Though towns seem to be going spectacularly badly for them, and they might be run close in the other seat that has Hereford in it.

[Youngian]

Peak Partridge

[Malcolm Armsteen]

There's been so much today, but one theme has been Johnson's lack of understanding of maths, science and general social knowledge. That expensive education, eh?

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Helen MacNamara has torpedoed Johnson, and especially Hancock.

Have they actually broken any laws? Misconduct in Public Office?

[Abernathy]

I’d say so, but we’re almost in a Trump-like scenario. It seems to take an awful lot, not least a proper measure of political will, to prosecute these cunts to any extent.