Author: #StopTheTories Channel Monitoring

Boris Johnson’s links to soft drinks and tobacco lobbyists revealed after he announces review of ‘sin taxes’

From Business Insider: Boris Johnson is under pressure to reveal his campaign’s links to the soft drinks and tobacco industries after he announced plans to cut “sin taxes” if he becomes prime minister. Following the announcement, The Times revealed links between Johnson’s campaign and the soft drinks industry. One of Johnson’s advisers and former spokesman, Will Walden, is employed by the lobbyists Edelman, which has worked for Coca-Cola.

[Read full article on Business Insider…]

Victims of the Tories’ hostile environment policies tell Glastonbury of their pain

From the Morning Star: Victims of the Tory Government’s hostile environment spoke at the Glastonbury Festival about the impact of losing their jobs and being separated from their partners.
 
Windrush scandal victim Michael Braithwaite, who arrived in Britain from Barbados in 1961, worked as a special needs teaching assistant but lost his job after being deemed an illegal immigrant. Speaking at Glastonbury Festival’s Left Field stage, he said: “My reputation as a teaching assistant was in tatters. I was in a bad mental state. I didn’t know who to trust.” Mr Braithwaite was told he needed to apply for a biometric card or face deportation, but was refused one three times.
Mr Braithwaite called for Britain’s colonial history to be taught in schools, a policy Labour would introduce under leader Jeremy Corbyn.
 
Laura Clarke also told the Hostile Environment — Who’s Responsible? debate of her plight being separated from her Ethiopian husband with whom she has a three-year-old son. The government’s minimum income requirement requires couples to earn at least £18,600 a year combined to be eligible for a family visa. However as a single mother and as a teacher in Ethiopia, they both earn less. She said: “My husband has only spent six months out of those three years with our son because of the government’s immigration rules. The government’s hostile environment is literally telling us and thousands of others that we are too poor to be together.”

“Boris Johnson is still lying, and still no one cares”

Tom Peck writes in the Independent: “Boris Johnson’s position on Brexit is still meaningless garbage. He still wants to ‘disaggregate bits of the withdrawal agreement’. He still wants to deal with the Irish border question ‘during the implementation period’, all the while continuing to have ‘frictionless trade’ with the European Union.”

[Read column on Independent website…]

“I’m a civil servant – and we can’t make Boris Johnson’s no-deal fantasy into reality”

From The Guardian: “The civil service’s technical work relies on facts and evidence – not force of personality. If, for example, there’s no quantity or quality of analysis that could convince a new prime minister to avoid disaster, then collectively we’ll have normalised fanaticism or – even worse – the cynical appeasement or cultivation of it. Either way, having withstood Theresa May’s hostile environment for years, it’s a rotten and destructive place for officials to be at the start of yet another new premiership, with the hardest bit of Brexit still to go and countless other neglected policy areas needing attention. Things can get worse – just look across the Atlantic.

“Wasn’t it ever thus for civil servants? Not really. While the recent hardening of the Brexiteers’ macho resolve to secure a no-deal Brexit is frightening, it’s not that surprising. What’s new is the sheer destructive glee with which so many public figures have embraced magical thinking. We now know, thanks to YouGov’s poll of Tory party members, the full horrifying scale of the ruling class’s suspension of disbelief. Brexit must happen even at the cost of significant economic damage, the breakup of the UK or the destruction of the Conservative Party itself.”

[Read full column on the Guardian website…]

Greens expected to stand aside to support Lib Dems’ by-election fight

From The New European: The Green Party is expected to stand aside for the Brecon & Radnorshire by-election in a bid to show ‘Remain unity’.

The election was called after a recall petition received more than 10% of support from electors in the constituency.

It followed Tory MP Chris Davies’ conviction for faking expenses claims after submitting two false expenses invoices for landscape photographs to decorate his new office.

In 2017, the Tories held a majority of more than 8,000 in the constituency, but this could easily be overturned in the current political climate.

Labour were in a distant third place in 2017 with 7,335 votes.

The Green Party are expected to stand aside for the vote, with Plaid Cymru considering making a similar move.

[Read full article on New European website…]

“Boris Johnson doesn’t care about Northern Ireland – and he doesn’t even care that you know that”

Peter Hain MP writes in The Independent: “Boris Johnson either doesn’t know much or couldn’t care less about the complications of the Irish border. As foreign secretary, despite it being at the very centre of the whole Brexit morass, he ludicrously compared the international frontier to the boundary between two London boroughs.”

[Read column on Independent website…]

Nearly half of Tory members would not want Muslim PM – poll

From The Guardian: Nearly half of Conservative Party members would prefer not to have a Muslim prime minister, a survey into the scale of Islamophobia in the party has suggested.

The poll, carried out by YouGov for the anti-racism group Hope Not Hate, also found that more than two-thirds of Tory members believe the myth that parts of the UK are under Sharia law, and 45% think some areas are not safe for non-Muslims.

Half of the party’s members think that Islamophobia is a big issue, but only 8% believe it is a problem within the party, the survey found.

In the online survey of 864 Conservative members, 39% said they agreed that “Islamist terrorists reflect a widespread hostility to Britain amongst the Muslim community”, and 40% think there should be a reduction in the number of Muslims entering Britain.

[Read full article on Guardian website…]

Boris Johnson refuses to appear on Sky Tory leadership debate

From The Guardian: Boris Johnson’s refusal to face public scrutiny as he runs for the Conservative party leadership has prompted Sky News to cancel a televised debate this week.

The broadcaster said that unless Johnson agreed to take part in the debate on Tuesday it would not go ahead. Instead it offered an alternative date of 1 July in an effort to get him and his fellow contender, Jeremy Hunt, to appear.
 
Hunt had agreed to take part in Tuesday’s debate and urged Johnson to join him. But Johnson’s team has repeatedly refused to say whether he plans to take part as it continues to restrict his media appearances.

Neighbours call police to Jeremy Hunt’s house after hearing screams from the NHS

Satire from Daily Squat: Police have investigated a disturbance at Jeremy Hunt’s house after neighbours claim they heard screams of ‘Look what you did to me’ and ‘You fucking ruined me’ from the NHS.

Jeremy Hunt was in what has been described as an ‘abusive relationship’ with the NHS for almost six years.

[Read full satirical article on Daily Squat…]

Boris Johnson does speak to Steve Bannon, says Nigel Farage

From The Guardian: Boris Johnson does speak to Steve Bannon, Nigel Farage has said, increasing the pressure on the Conservative leadership frontrunner to explain his links to Donald Trump’s controversial former campaign manager.

“Steve likes to be seen at the centre of the action. He knows Boris, he speaks to Boris. Steve speaks to virtually everybody,” Farage told a press conference when asked what he knew of Johnson’s links to Bannon. “I’ve known Steve Bannon since 2012. There’s no great secret about that. Boris, of course, got to know Bannon when he was foreign secretary, when he was visiting Washington and going into the West Wing, and that’s how those two got to know each other.”

Farage’s comments follow the emergence of video footage in which Bannon speaks about his relationship and contacts with Johnson, and says he helped him put together his first speech after his resignation as foreign secretary, in which Johnson condemned Theresa May’s Brexit strategy. One clip shows Bannon reading a story about Johnson’s speech, before he says: “I’ve been talking to him all weekend about this speech. We went back and forth over the text.”

When reports emerged last year of links between Johnson and the far-right activist, who has tried to build up a network of populist movements across Europe, Johnson called them “a lefty delusion whose spores continue to breed in the Twittersphere”.

[Read full article on Guardian website…]

Chris Davies: Tories re-select expenses criminal MP to fight crucial by-election

From the Daily Mirror: MP Chris Davies, convicted of criminal offences over his expenses, has been re-selected by the Tories to fight a crucial by-election.

Chris Davies was booted out of his seat on Friday after almost 20% of all registered voters locally signed a recall petition. But despite receiving a court sentence, Mr Davies was legally entitled to stand in the by-election to replace himself. And today Conservative members in Brecon and Radnorshire confirmed they have re-selected the 51-year-old on a Tory ticket.

Thanking members today, Mr Davies said: “A lot has been achieved over the past four years, but there is so much more to do, and I am the right person to do it.”

Local Tory chairman Peter Weavers said: “Chris is local, he knows the area, he knows the constituents, knows the issues and problems we face, and that matters.”

The Lib Dems will now throw the kitchen sink at the seat, which they held from 1997 to 2015, in a bid to overturn the MP’s 8,038 majority.

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