Leaks wherever one looks: Whitehall, Water companies – no matter

 

The Trussists in the MSM are so hard at work, it’s becoming scary. From ‘Sunak on the ropes’ over ‘Sunak mansplaining’ and ‘screeching U-turn’: it’s La Liz all the way down (link).For the rest of us peasants who just wish to be left alone, there’s footie: wimmins footie that is, which is ‘roarsome’ because the national women’s team is called ‘the lionesses’ and they’re in the final of the women’s European Cup. That should make some Brits happy, no? They’ll meet either Germany or France, so we can look forward to more nationalistic fervour and ‘roarsome’ headlines. 

However, something of national and local interest if you live in London has made it only onto the front page of the Metro: another day of Rail and Tube strikes, of ‘hell’ and ‘misery’. Of course our Westminster hacks couldn’t care less. They are playing at king~ or rather : queen~making. Honorary mention must go to the Mirror which has the RTM boss Mr Lynch on the front page of their print edition. He declared that the RTM will go on ‘to fight the Tory war on workers’. Funny – I thought it was the Labour Party which did the fighting for workers? Times surely have changed. 

And so to the event which dominates the rest of the papers: the Truss v Sunak TV fight and the collapse, on camera, of the presenter (e.g. link). Here’s a ‘report’ – not a comical sketch – by the DT’s political commentator Tim Stanley. It documents that, even for the Westminster MSM, this ‘race’ is really nothing but theatre:

“It was one of the strangest, most shocking moments in TV history. Liz Truss was in the middle of denouncing Russia with her characteristic tics – her hands gripping that invisible tea tray for dear life – when there was an almighty crash off-screen. “Oh my God!” Liz covered her mouth. Then she stepped towards the camera.” (paywalled link)

Well, that poor fainting presenter must’ve been stricken by some Putin long-distance ray or summink because her faint meant Truss couldn’t threaten Russia with yet another tirade. It could also have been some sort of MI5 secret weapon because they feared La Truss was on the brink of ‘unveiling’ some of their secret plans to stop Putin. 

In order to fill their front pages, the papers picked up ‘news’ items from this debate, such as Sunak going to take on Big Tech ‘repealing laws that stifle Free Speech’ (link. Perhaps that’s why La Truss demanded that the police must ‘go back to basics’, lock up more criminals and not chase some Twitterati (paywalled link). Excuse me – but wasn’t her dear colleague Ms Patel responsible for the police, having been the Home Secretary since Johnson ousted May three years ago?

In support of Miz T, the DT has a little report about the The Manchester Police Chief showing how this can be done. Under the headline the DT writes: “Smart dress code helps turn police force into Britain’s fastest improving [sic!] – Manchester officers have been told to shave designer stubble and polish their boots as a ‘back to basics’ approach boosts arrests” (paywalled link). That’s the way to do it, and with Miz Truss in No 10 the police everywhere will be smartly dressed and thus catch more baddies. 

But will she get there? Will making a caricature of Sunak – ‘mansplaining’ What the heck? Isn’t he expected to explain his policies? – be sufficient? The DM had a very interesting little report which makes me wonder:

“Liz Truss urged Dominic Cummings to scrap hundreds of ‘woke’ civil service roles in an attack on Whitehall ‘groupthink’, a leaked document has revealed. As international trade secretary in 2020, Miss Truss’s office called for the abolition of diversity and inclusion roles in the civil service. Her office reportedly signed off the document to Mr Cummings, who was then Boris Johnson’s most senior adviser, criticising the ‘risk-averse’ Whitehall for its liberal ‘groupthink’.” (link)

How … intriguing! I cannot recall her weighing in on Cummings’ side when he was battling against ‘her upstairs’, leading to his ousting. A ‘source’ (of course, what else!) ‘close’ to Ms Liz told the papers that this leaked document shows how she would seek to govern. Funny that her ever so principled attitude isn’t supported by facts, by reports from the departments she led.

It couldn’t be that La Liz , political opportunist with her eyes on the main chance, avoided such ‘battles’ because she saw how her colleague Ms Patel was being warred against by her own HO mandarins? I cannot recall any public statement by Truss in support of Ms Patel. Now though it’s time to present us gawping plebs with spurious evidence of what she’d do when she’s in No 10, having beaten the mansplaining Sunak:

“As prime minister, Liz will not be captured by the Whitehall and Treasury orthodoxy,’ the source said. ‘She’ll push ahead with tough reforms and get things through the labyrinthine Whitehall system. She’s absolutely the person who will get things done and challenge Civil Service groupthink.’ (link)

If you think it’s odd that this document, written in 2020, has suddenly seen the light of day, used as ammunition in La Truss’ leadership campaign, wonder no longer. One of her staunchest supporters, Mr JRM, is also in the news. According to The Times,

“[he] has launched a review into whether ministers’ decisions are being properly implemented by civil servants as he vows to secure “maximum value from taxpayers’ money” across Whitehall. […] The review will examine how the civil service functions from top to bottom, including the “role, status and composition of the civil service board” — the panel of 11 permanent secretaries that leads the civil service — and how effectively they are held to account by the prime minister.” (link, paywalled)

Aha! And of course, the leaked document of Miz Truss’ stand against Whitehall mandarins means that the results of JRM’s review would only be implemented by a Truss in No 10. How cute! 

I leave you with two other news items. One is utterly scary. In the DT we read that Johnson is “[…] tipped to become next secretary general of Nato – Ukrainian and Tory MPs support idea of PM being a possible candidate, though sceptics suggest he would likely be greeted with a French veto” (paywalled link). Blimey – the ‘friends of BJ’ must be desperate …

The current NATO SecGen, Mr Stoltenberg, was meant to have retired earlier this year but stayed ‘because: war!’. We’ll see if the support from yon famous non-NATO country will weigh against Macron’s expected opposition. If NATO wants to totally wreck itself then they could find no better candidate than chaotic Johnson. 

The other news item is utterly infuriating. Yesterday we reported on a possible drought, hosepipe bans included, and mentioned that the ‘National Drought Agency’ was meeting yesterday. So now see this (my emphasis):

“England’s water companies are leaking up to a quarter of their supply a day as the country faces a drought next month, […] The country’s nine water companies are leaking almost 2.4 billion litres of water every day while paying their chief executives large bonuses.” (link, paywalled)

Forget about those ‘large bonuses’ for their CEOs – that is common practice. There’s not one CEO, be it in the NHS, be it in the BBC, any other agency or indeed in Whitehall where bosses don’t receive ‘large bonuses’. The scandal is that a quarter of the water supply is leaking while we are exhorted to ‘save water’. 

Moreover, it’s news to me that ‘climate extreme change whatevah’ makes pipes leak. It’s news to me that ‘climate change etc’ makes CEOs incapable of fixing those leaks. I say that it’s not ‘climate whatevah’ but greed and probably covid which has softened the brains of COEs, MSM editors and politicians, all the way down from No 10. One thing’s fersure: we’ll pay, regardless of who ends up as PM.

As for the hapless new PM: either of the candidates will be out at the next GE because Whitehall mandarins are more dangerous foes than even the fearsome combination of Labour and Westminster MSM. Have a nice day.

 

 



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