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Boris Johnson’s allies say latest lockdown police referral is ‘political stitch-up’

May 23, 2023 by www.telegraph.co.uk Leave a Comment

Boris Johnson has been referred to police over fresh allegations of breaking Covid lockdown rules, in a move branded a political “smear” by his allies.

The Metropolitan Police and Thames Valley Police confirmed on Tuesday that they were looking at gatherings Mr Johnson attended – including receiving visitors – in Downing Street and Chequers while prime minister.

It was prompted by the Cabinet Office handing over diary entries that were uncovered by lawyers working on Mr Johnson’s formal submission to the Covid Inquiry .

Cabinet Office sources said that officials were obliged by the civil service code to give the information to the police as they were concerned the entries detailed potential breaches of Covid rules .

‘Political stitch-up’

However, a spokesman for Mr Johnson said the allegations were “totally untrue” and suggested that the claims had been made for a “political purpose”.

Legal options will be considered by the former prime minister after the Government passed the extracts from his diaries to the police without informing him.

The development triggered a fierce reaction as friends of the former prime minister claimed he was being targeted by a “political stitch-up” and a “smear”.

An ally of Mr Johnson said: “This is ridiculous and it is a wilful attempt to misread diary entries in order to make something out of nothing.”

Supporters of the former prime minister noted that Oliver Dowden, the most senior minister in the Cabinet Office, is one of Rishi Sunak’s closest friends in politics .

But Cabinet Office sources said that no minister was involved in the decision, dismissing any accusation of politicking and saying officials were duty-bound to act.

It comes as the Government braces for confirmation that net migration has hit a record high , with projections that the total will be between 700,000 and one million.

The former prime minister’s fall from power last year followed the “partygate” scandal , in which Covid fines were issued over eight events in government buildings. Mr Johnson received one fine.

A linked investigation by the Commons privileges committee into whether Mr Johnson misled MPs over the events continues to overshadow his hopes of a political comeback, with a report expected next month. The committee is understood to have been informed of the police referral.

New Chequers and Downing Street events

Little is known about the gatherings at the heart of the latest development. One source familiar with them said there were a “handful” of events. Another said “more than ten”.

The police confirmed they occurred between June 2020 and May 2021, a period in which the country moved in and out of lockdown.

The Telegraph has been told that one event being looked at was a lunch in the No 10 garden attended by Mr Johnson and his mother Charlotte, who died in September 2021 .

Another, which Whitehall sources vehemently denied was a breach of the rules and said was arranged by Downing Street, is said to have involved Mr Johnson meeting the television presenter Kate Garraway to discuss her husband, who was left in a life-threatening condition after being diagnosed with Covid in March 2020. Full details of the events are not yet public.

Sunak vs Johnson

Enmity has been growing between supporters of Mr Johnson and Mr Sunak about the Tory rebellion last year that led to the former PM’s ousting from Downing Street.

Mr Johnson resigned from office less than 48 hours after Mr Sunak and Sajid Javid, the health secretary at the time, quit his Cabinet. Johnson allies continue to put some blame on Mr Sunak for his demise, a claim waved away by the Prime Minister’s supporters.

Last autumn, Mr Johnson attempted to become prime minister again when Liz Truss resigned, but dropped out after several MPs endorsed Mr Sunak.

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: “Information came to light during the process of preparing evidence for submission to the Covid Inquiry.

“In line with obligations in the civil service code, this material has been passed to the relevant authorities and it is now a matter for them.”

The civil service code states: “In line with the core value of integrity, civil servants must comply with the law and uphold the administration of justice.”

‘Bizarre and unacceptable allegations’

A spokesman for Mr Johnson said: “Some abbreviated entries in Mr Johnson’s official diary were queried by the Cabinet Office during preparation for the Covid Inquiry.

“Following an examination of the entries, Mr Johnson’s lawyers wrote to the Cabinet Office and privileges committee explaining that the events were lawful and were not breaches of any Covid regulations.”

The spokesman added: “The assertion by the Cabinet Office that there have been further Covid rule breaches is totally untrue.

“No contact was made with Mr Johnson before these incorrect allegations were made both to the police and to the privileges committee. This is both bizarre and unacceptable.

“For whatever political purpose, it is plain that a last-ditch attempt is being made to lengthen the privileges committee investigation as it was coming to a conclusion and to undermine Mr Johnson.

“Mr Johnson’s lawyers have tonight written to the police forces involved to explain in detail why the Cabinet Office is entirely wrong in its assertions.

“The events in question were all within the rules either because they were held outdoors or came within another lawful exception. They include regular meetings with civil servants and advisers.

“Many will conclude that this has all the hallmarks of yet another politically motivated stitch up.”

The Metropolitan Police said they were assessing the entries that “relate to potential breaches of the Health Protection Regulations between June 2020 and May 2021 at Downing Street”.

A Thames Valley police spokesman said they were assessing “a report of potential breaches of the Health Protection Regulations between June 2020 and May 2021 at Chequers, Buckinghamshire”.

Filed Under: EUNews UK News, Politics, Standard, News, Downing Street parties, Conservative Party, Boris Johnson, Johnson City Police Department, West Allis Police Department, Police Say, brexit boris johnson, boris johnson churchill, boris johnson brexit, Indian politics latest news, pakistani politics latest news, latest political news

Chesco Voters Save Farm From Developers

February 9, 2023 by patch.com Leave a Comment

Politics & Government

Westtown Township voters approved a tax hike to save Crebilly Farm from development. The farm dates back to the Revolutionary War.

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Holly Herman , Patch Staff Verified Patch Staff Badge
Posted | Updated

CHESTER COUNTY, PA – Westtown Township reidents voted in favor of a referendum for the township to purchase the 208 acres of the Crebilly Farm for $20.8 million, resulting in tax increases.

A total of 67.5 percent, or 4,001 residents voted in favor of the referendum, and a total of 32.5 percent, or 1,926 residents voted against the referendum, according to the Chester County election results available Thursday.

The referendum asked if voters would support tax increases of .08 percent in earned income taxes and real estate taxes at a rate not to exceed .42 per $1,000 of assessed property to acquire the property for open space.

In April, the township voted to purchase the farm for a park , preventing the land from being sold to a developer.

Land owners, the Robinson family, co-founders of Acme Markets, signed an agreement to sell the land to the township.

A second agreement for Natural Lands, a non profit conservation organization, to purchase easements for 102 acres is pending.

The funds generated from the increase will secure bonds to pay for the acquisition and maintenance of Crebilly Farm, one of the largest remaining unprotected properties in the township and county.

“To say we are thrilled is something of an understatement,” Oliver Bass, president of Natural Lands, a nonprofit trust, said in a prepared statement.

“For years, grassroots groups have been vocal about the importance of preserving this beautiful and ecologically important property. With Tuesday’s vote, the residents of Westtown—on both sides of the political aisle—have made their voices heard with a resounding “yes” for conservation.”

Natural Lands has submitted grant requests for approximately $16,000,000—about 75 percent of the cost of the acquisition.

Jack Stefferud, senior director of land protection for Natural Lands, said the project if the referendum was not approved the project would have failed, and Crebilly Farm likely would have been sold to developers.

History

Crebilly Farm, located off Routes 202 and 926, has a history dating back to the American Revolution.

On Sept. 11, 1777, the largest battle of the American Revolution occurred on the site, according to an historical account provided by the Westtown Township Historical Commission.

American General Adam Stephen spotted Hessian troops marching across the farm from his lookout atop Sandy Hollow, where the main battle would take place.

Stephen dispatched a party of soldiers to the farm to frustrate the Hessians’ advance towards the American position.

At this site, the Continental Army learned courage to stand up to the best British Troops.


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Tareen likely to launch ‘new political party in 72 hours’

May 29, 2023 by www.thenews.com.pk Leave a Comment

As the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) exodus continues unabated following the May 9 riots, seasoned politician Jahangir Khan Tareen (JKT) — once Imran Khan’s closest aide — is likely to announce his new party, mostly comprising the former ruling party’s deserters, during the next 72 hours, well-informed sources said on Monday.

The development came during a luncheon hosted in honour of JKT and his aides at the residence of former PTI leader Aleem Khan. JKT, accompanied by “important political personalities” is expected to announce the launch of a new political party, the sources added.

A day earlier, Tareen made telephonic contacts with more than 100 political leaders, including current and those leaders who have recently bid adieu to the PTI after the May 9 mayhem.

The former ruling party has been feeling the heat of the state’s might after enraged PTI workers allegedly attacked sensitive military installations, including the Lahore Corps Commander’s House and the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi following the arrest of party chairman Imran Khan on May 9 — a day the army dubbed as “Black Day”. The exodus of leaders from the party started when the government decided to try the May 9 vandals in the military courts.

Tareen was the secretary general of the PTI before he was ousted from politics in 2017 after the Supreme Court disqualified him for being “dishonest” on a petition filed by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Hanif Abbasi.

However, despite the disqualification, Tareen remained part of the PTI and was crucial in wooing independent lawmakers to join the Imran Khan-led party after the 2018 elections. His efforts proved critical as they helped Khan secure the prime ministership in 2018.

But after coming to power Tareen and Aleem Khan’s relationship with the PTI turned sour.

In May 2022, the former prime minister revealed the reason behind his differences with both leaders and said that both were seeking “illegal benefits from him.”

Speaking during a podcast, Khan — who was removed from office via vote of no-confidence in April last year — had claimed that differences with both leaders developed when he refused to entertain their requests.

“Aleem Khan expected me to legalise his 300-acre land near Ravi”, Khan said, adding “From then onwards, I developed differences with him.”

While talking about Tareen, Khan said: “Tareen stood with those who are the biggest dacoits in the country. When I ordered a probe into the matter [sugar scandal], differences developed with Tareen.”

During the luncheon today, a large number of current and former leaders of the PTI, including Aleem Khan and Aun Chaudhry were among the attendees of the event.

Following the lunch, JKT and Aleem Khan discussed plan about a new political party, the sources added.

“Instead of forming a pressure group, we should form a new political party,” the participants suggested to JKT.

“Those who are parting ways with the PTI should be provided a new platform,” the participants said.

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Atal Behari Vajpayee: The man who made Hindu nationalist politics acceptable

May 24, 2023 by www.bbc.co.uk Leave a Comment

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By Soutik Biswas

India correspondent

On 26 June 1975, the police arrived at a hostel in India’s southern city of Bangalore and arrested Atal Behari Vajpayee, a prominent opposition politician.

The previous evening, prime minister Indira Gandhi had imposed a state of Emergency and plunged the nation into an extraordinary crisis. Elections had been suspended, civil rights curbed, the media gagged and critics and opposition politicians rounded up. Gandhi also banned the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological fountainhead of the later-day Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which rules India today.

Vajpayee was then a leader of the Jan Sangh, the right-wing forerunner to the BJP, and a member of the RSS. More than two decades later, he had risen to become India’s prime minister – twice briefly in 1996 and 1998, and then a full term, leading a coalition federal government, between 1999 and 2004.

  • Atal Behari Vajpayee: A mercurial moderate

Back in the summer of 1975, Vajpayee was facing arrest. He asked a party worker about the “best jail” in the city, and looked “bored, but sat stoically” in the police station. Finally, he spent a month in prison, writing poetry – naming himself a “kaidi kavirai” or the prisoner poet – playing cards and supervising in the kitchen.

In July, Vajpayee was flown to Delhi in a special plane, after a botched medical diagnosis. In the capital, he spent time, first in hospital recuperating from a surgery and then at home on parole under the watch of the police. By mid-December, Vajpayee appeared to be despondent. “The sun in the evening of my life has decided to set…Words are devoid of meaning…What was music once is now scattered noise,” he wrote in a poem.

A movement distributing clandestine literature and organising civil disobedience – mainly kept alive by RSS pracharaks or full-time apostles – against the Emergency was already fizzling out. Her advisers were pressuring opposition leaders to sign a “surrender document” so they could negotiate with the government. Vajpayee, according to a riveting new biography of the leader by Abhishek Choudhary, was “shocked there was no mass uprising against the Emergency”.

What nobody quite reckoned then was that in a year’s time Vajpayee would end up playing a pivotal role in cobbling together a one-party opposition to the Congress. The Janata Party – a coalition mainly of four centrist and right wing parties (including the Jan Sangh) – would hand down a sensational drubbing in March 1977 elections to Gandhi’s Congress party, its first loss in 30 years after independence. (The prime minister had announced general elections in January and lifted the 20-month Emergency later.)

  • The secret behind India’s ruling party’s success

The Janata Party won 298 of the 542 seats. Most importantly, the Jan Sangh held the foremost position within the coalition, winning 90 seats. Mr Choudhary says Vajpayee could have made the “nominal claim” for the prime minister’s job, but at 52 he was too young for the job. (The 78-year Morarji Desai, a spartan and crusty politician, became the prime minister.) The new cabinet included three Jan Sangh members. Vajpayee took office as foreign minister, promising no “immediate or major changes in the country’s policy”, and an improvement in relations with China.

Vajpayee’s ascendancy was clear during Janata Party’s campaign. The charismatic politician with a flair for oratory was Janata Party’s “biggest crowd-puller” after Jayaprakash Narayan or JP, the 72-year-old leader who had united the opposition forces, writes Mr Choudhary. The media described Vajpayee as the Janata’s “glamour guy”. A campaign poster pronounced him a “pride of the nation”.

In many ways, Mr Choudhary told me, it was Vajpayee who played a “crucial role in mainstreaming Hindu nationalism”. This is in sharp contrast to the popular narrative that solely credits Vajpayee’s fellow traveller and BJP leader LK Advani for catapulting the party to power after spearheading the decades old-movement to construct a temple in the northern city of Ayodhya. “This is an ideologically lazy, self-deceptive analysis that wholly bypasses an earlier trend,” the biographer says.

What people forget, Mr Choudhary says, is that much before the rise of the BJP – from a paltry two seats in the 1984 elections to two back-to-back overwhelming majorities in 2014 and 2019 – its predecessor Jan Sangh, to whom Vajpayee belonged, had proved its credentials as a right-wing political party. At their peak in 1967, the Jan Sangh had some 50 MPs and nearly 300 legislators, he adds.

  • Obituary: AB Vajpayee

“Vajpayee was a bridge between two eras in Indian politics – the Congress and the right wing. There would have been no Narendra Modi without Vajpayee,” Mr Choudhary says. When the fractious Janata Party collapsed in 1980, Vajpayee proposed that the Jan Sangh should recast itself into a brand-new mainstream political party and the BJP was born.

Many have described Vajpayee as a “mask” or a moderate in a party of hawks. Mr Choudhary says Vajpayee “could not afford to be hardliner” because he had to work with a coalition of disparate political partners and realised that compromise was the key to politics. “But the early Vajpayee, before he became an MP, was hardline,” he says.

Vajpayee was born in Gwalior to a teacher father and a homemaker mother at a time when two major pro-Hindu groups, the Hindu Mahasabha and Arya Samaj were already espousing the idea of Hindu unity. His earliest poems, Mr Choudhary writes, “speak of the intense rage and victimhood Atal felt; that he had come to have a sharp, if also narrow and confused, sense of India’s history and geography, and the need for its revival; and a sense of his own place in the wider world”.

Vajpayee had joined the RSS – formed in 1925 – during his college years. He gave weekly lectures, dreamt of becoming a journalist and wrote a polemic of the history of Islam in India. He edited four right-wing publications, including Panchjanya, the RSS mouthpieces, where he wrote on cow protection, Hindu personal law, India’s relation with the world and Hinduism. He betrayed a prudish streak when he found the songs in Barsaat (Rain), a popular Bollywood film, “dirty and vulgar”, and implored the government to stop children from watching films.

Decades later, Vajpayee appeared to have evolved into a pragmatist. When he was helping the Janata Party cobble together its campaign, the local media praised him for a “degree of moderation, suavity and capacity to grasp issues and reconcile differences”.

One thing is clear, Mr Choudhary says. Throughout his six-decade-long career Vajpayee, who died in 2018, aged 93, remained the “most enigmatic Indian politician of recent times”.

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  • Atal Behari Vajpayee: A mercurial moderate

    • Published
      16 August 2018

  • Obituary: AB Vajpayee

    • Published
      16 August 2018

  • The secret behind India’s ruling party’s success

    • Published
      2 December 2020

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Opinion: Brough and Johnston and the civility this nation needs in politics

May 29, 2023 by www.denverpost.com Leave a Comment

What kind of political debate lacks sarcastic one-liners, rhetorical fallacies, eye rolls, obvious lies, outrageous accusations, and faux outrage? The one I recently witnessed between Denver mayoral candidates Kelly Brough and Mike Johnston at the Denver Botanic Gardens.

The debate for Denver mayor candidates in the June 6 runoff election , sponsored by Denver PBS Channel 12, engaged candidates and experts from Urban Peak, Colorado Village Collaborative, ULI Colorado, and BOMA Denver in a conversation about homelessness.

Watching a thoughtful exchange between political rivals was refreshing. In contrast to the unending abrasion of national politics, it was anodyne. They actually focused on their own extensive experience in public policy and positive campaign promises rather than hurling invective. From what I hear, Johnston and Brough are always like this: intelligent, winsome, and respectful to each other and the audience. The June 6 runoff election is just around the corner. It’s close and yet no candidate forum has deteriorated into the all too common campaign mud fight.

At the PBS 12 forum, both candidates were well-informed about the issue of homelessness and thoughtful in their responses. While they talked about new initiatives to help people experiencing homelessness, I would have liked to have heard more about how they would mitigate the negative impact of urban camping and vagrancy on downtown businesses and homeowners. I don’t recall the words “personal responsibility” mentioned and wished Andy Rougeot, the Republican candidate who came in fourth place in round one of the election, had been on the stage.

The city’s homeless population increased 44% over the past five years, according to a report by the Common Sense Institute, despite a record amount of money spent on the problem. In the past three years alone, the city budgeted $1.45 billion for programs for the homeless. Another CSI report estimated that Denver spends between $42,000 and $104,000 per homeless person per year through government agencies and charitable organizations. The more money-more programs approach espoused by the candidates may not be the answer.

Indeed, Johnston’s ambitious promise to “end homelessness” is likely to come to not. As long as there have been cities there have been people struggling with mental illness, addiction, poor decisions, and misfortune. Some people want to get into recovery, full-time work, and stable housing. Others prefer to beg, camp out, and get high. People struggling with severe mental illness cannot be involuntarily placed into a mental institution. For these reasons, the last plan to end homelessness, launched by then-mayor Hickenlooper, remains unfulfilled.

Despite my pessimism, I like both candidates and believe either one will be a good mayor. Their resumes are impressive. Brough has devoted much of her career to the City of Denver as an analyst for the City Council, the head of the human resources department, chief of staff to then-Mayor John Hickenlooper, the president and CEO of the Denver Chamber of Commerce, and a chief strategy officer at Metropolitan State University. Her achievements shine especially against the backdrop of personal adversity, namely the deaths of close family members by homicide and suicide. She is resilient.

Johnston has been a teacher, school principal, state legislator, and the CEO of the philanthropic organization Gary Community Ventures. While a legislator he championed educator effectiveness legislation, Senate Bill 191. Although Johnston has been criticized for his leadership in pushing education reform, he has stood by the law, rather than backpedal. That says a lot about his character.

Both candidates have received key endorsements from current and former elected officials including former mayors–Wellington Web and Bill Vidal for Brough and Federico Pena for Johnston. While the candidates are moderate in temperament and record, Johnston’s endorsement by far-left mayoral candidates Lisa Calderon and Leslie Herod and Brough’s endorsement by Planned Parenthood are dismaying. Let’s hope neither will veer leftward after the election.

Since no Democrat wants the endorsement of the Denver Post’s center-right columnist, I’ll endorse their modus operandi: civility. Manners aren’t a heavy lift. We expect them of five-year-old kids but sometimes let candidates for office off the hook. Brough and Johnston’s decency should set the bar for all future candidates for public office in this state.

Krista L. Kafer is a weekly Denver Post columnist. Follow her on Twitter: @kristakafer

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