Brook Sabin writes:

Could somebody please send out a search party and locate Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis? 

I don’t mean that literally. I know where he spent last week – at Parliament – which makes his absence from the Government’s public response all the more gobsmacking. 

The tourism sector is imploding, countless jobs are being lost, and many are left with a feeling of uncertainty. …

What tourism businesses desperately need is a leader to articulate a message of hope. It needs Davis to proactively front the media, on a regular basis, to give an idea of what the Government is doing to save the sector. Because fronting the media gets the message out to operators, who are in the middle of making big decisions about their futures.

Tourism is by far the hardest hit sector, yet the Minister is invisible.

We have seen the finance, education, media and social development ministers all head to the main podium to be held to account. But not Davis.

I know why. Davis struggles in front of the camera.

I remind people Davis is not a junior Minister. He is third ranked, ranking higher than Grant Robertson. The third ranked Minister is incapable of being trusted to hold a press conference.

The Herald reports:

A promotional video featuring the Prime Minister’s partner has been questioned over concerns it could be perceived to be “politicising” the police force.

Clarke Gayford headlined a police video in mid-April that aimed to encourage people who were looking after young kids during the lockdown.

In the video Wellington Paranormal star Karen O’Leary calls to check in just as Gayford has managed to get his young daughter Neve to sleep.

National list MP Brett Hudson questioned Police Commissioner Andrew Coster about the video during yesterday’s Epidemic Response Committee meeting.

“Do you think that a video is appropriate and does it risk politicising police?”

Of course it does. I’ve had numerous e-mails to me complaining it does exactly that.

“And people will probably appreciate that Mr Gayford has also previously been a part of Wellington Paranormal.

“He is a well-known TV personality, in his own right, and that was the sort of connection that caused it to come about.

Gayford has only been featured in Wellington Paranormal because he is the PM’s partner.

He was not a well-known TV personality in his own right prior to his relationship with Ardern. 98% of New Zealanders would not have heard of him previously. His fishing show was on Choice TV, not TVNZ or Tv3. This is not having a go at Clarke or the show. From all accounts it is a good show which he hosts well. But it is silly to pretend he was used in the Police video because of his background in broadcasting rather than the fact he is the PMs partner.

I’ve got no problems with Wellington Paranormal including him in their show. They are an entertainment show. But for the Police to include him in an official Police video is a very bad idea.

The allegations by Tara Reade that Joe Biden sexually assaulted her when she worked for him has got more attention since two people came forward to confirm that she told them of the alleged assaults soon after they happened.

Generally one of the best (but far from perfect) indicators of veracity in historical claims) is whether they told anyone at the time. I believe Bill Clinton raped Juanita Broaddrick primarily because she told someone about it the afternoon it happened. She also told three others shortly afterwards.

Also Reade’s mother called in 30 or so years ago to a Larry King show asking for advice for her daughter who had a bad experience with a Senator she worked for. While we don’t know exactly what happened, we can conclude that something happened back then which Reade found extremely upsetting.

So on that basis I would have regarded Reade’s claims as more likely than that of Christine Blasey Ford vs Brett Kavanaugh as Ford told no one for 30 years. Note we have no way of knowing in absolute terms. The point I am making is you tend to place greater reliance on claims where there is contemporary verification.

In Biden’s defence there is no pattern of behaviour (in terms of alleged sexual assaults) as there has been with Clinton and Trump.

Overall though my conclusion was that it was more likely than not Biden did commit some sort of sexual assault due to what Reade said to people at the time.

So if I was ranking the probability that someone did commit sexual assault my rough order from most to least likely would have been:

1. Weinstein/Cosby (convicted)
2. Trump (20+ allegations, boasted on tape about it)
3. Clinton (multiple allegations)
4. Biden
5. Kavanaugh

But I then read this article on Medium about Tara Reade and it really does raise huge issues around her credibility. Again no one knows the actual truth except Reade and Biden. There is no process for adjudicating in a court of law so we need to weigh up issues such as credibility of both Biden and Reade to make political judgement as this is about whether Biden is fit to be President.

After reading the Medium article I now would have Biden at around the same level of probability as Kavanaugh. Ford was a more credible accuser than Reade but Reade did tell people about what she alleges happened at the time.

What will US voters make of it? Who knows.

Sir Roger Douglas and Professor Robert MacCulloch have published a paper on Why the Prioritization of Resources is Crucial to New Zealand’s Economic Recovery in the Wake of Covid-19.

The paper is here.

The summary is:

The Covid-19 outbreak has not only precipitated a health emergency, but also an economic crisis, unparalleled in modern history.  For New Zealand to emerge from that crisis in a relatively healthy state, the Labour government will need to provide a clear framework for recovery, implementing policies which clearly prioritize those most affected by the societal and economic lockdown necessitated by the outbreak. To date, such prioritization has been lacking, with the Wage Subsidy Scheme unfairly advantaging big business and the professional elite, at the cost of money and resources which could have been better directed towards assisting the newly unemployed – namely workers, their families, and small business owners.

Ultimately, poorly targeted support in the form of helicopter payments, wage subsidies, or broad-based tax cuts (such as a moratorium on GST) is wasteful, and will only serve to entrench inequalities that existed prior to the pandemic.  Equally, the time and costs inherent in planning large-scale new infrastructure projects – and the fact that they offer little practical help to the majority of workers who require help now – means that they should not be regarded as a panacea, aiding economic recovery. 

Instead, clear, innovative policies, which not only prioritize those most in need, but which also lay the groundwork for further social and economic reform in the medium to long term, are required.  For workers and their families, support can be offered via the mechanism of special risk accounts, tailored to meet their individual needs.  For small business, help can be provided by facilitating conversations between businesses, landlords, and banks, as well as providing – upon the provision of an approved business plan – forgivable government loans.

Finally, to help manage the recovery, and ensure our younger generations are not saddled with debt, the government must also identify, and eliminate, unnecessary spending, privilege, and waste.  It can find an extra $15 billion per annum by doing so, contributing to the recovery in the short term, and – more generally – to implementing wider scale reform once the immediate crisis has been put behind it.

The authors point out:

In 2019, the Warehouse Group made an after-tax profit of $74 million dollars.  Even allowing for some inevitable pain, good corporate management suggests that it should have been able to look after itself during the lockdown, or, failing that, should have been capable of paying back a loan once its stores reopened.  Similarly, the partners in wealthy law firms like Simpson Grierson, Bell Gully and MinterEllison have enjoyed years of high six (and sometimes even seven) figure salaries.  Why haven’t they been required to fend for themselves and their businesses?  Why, when the good times suddenly come to an end, have they gone cap in hand to the government?  And why has the government responded by treating them the same as workers and small businesses who have never enjoyed an equivalent level of wealth and who do not enjoy access to the resources they do?

You could argue the listed companies have a duty to their shareholders to take the subsidy if they are eligible.

Overall a excellent paper that emphasizes the importance of spending being of high quality, not scattergun.

Stuff reports:

New Zealand’s Parliament is famous for being able to pass laws quickly in a crisis.

But on Thursday it might have moved too quickly, after an error meant that the wrong piece of legislation was introduced to Parliament and then passed within hours, accidentally bringing into law a multi-billion dollar loan scheme. …

Robertson later clarified what had gone wrong, saying that the error was the result of an error made by the Parliamentary Counsel Office, which is responsible for drafting the legislation. 

“The bill that was put up by the Parliamentary Counsel Office and was tabled in the House was incorrect, and the Parliamentary Counsel Office have apologised for that,” Robertson said. 

The PCO is unable to table a bill. Only a Minister can table a Government bill. This shows that the Minister obviously didn’t even read the bill he was tabling.

And this wasn’t a minor piece of legislation. It may result in $7 billion of loans, many of which may never get repaid.

Simon Bridges in a speech to Business NZ has announced two major policies to help businesses survive the economic carnage caused by the (necessary) responses to Covid-19.

The first is GST refunds to businesses. The details:

• A business can claim back any GST they paid between 1 July 2019 and 31 December 2019 up to $100,000 if revenue down over 50% across two successive months
• An eligible business can claim back an additional $250,000 of GST over that period but as a five year loan with a 0.7% interest rate

Bridges makes the point:

Let’s face it – these businesses have been forced to shut down in the national interest.

It is in the national interest to keep them afloat.

It’s not right that small business should be left to carry so much of the economic suffering.

The wage subsidy has helped employees for 12 weeks, but it hasn’t helped businesses with zero revenue pay overheads like rent, power and stock.

This is key. These businesses have not lost their income due to poor planning, due to not being in the right market, due to bad customer service etc. They lost their income due to the response to a pandemic.

The second policy is to increase the amount of capital expenditure that can be claimed off tax immediately rather than depreciated over many years. The limit was anything over $500 must be capitalised and depreciated, not expensed. Bridges proposes lifting it to $150,000.

So, if you have a company and spend $145,000 on new machinery, rather than depreciating that asset over many years, you’ll be able to expense the full $145,000 in this tax year.

This would encourage capital investment, which is excellent.

Great to see National with ambitious practical policies for helping small and medium businesses. Some of the aspects I like are:

• The 50% revenue decline over two months means it is tightly targeted at those businesses most in need
• Having the grant proportional to GST (and hence revenue) is better than merely based on staff numbers
• Targeting it at smaller businesses with the $100,000 cap but allowing the five year loan for larger businesses
• The huge lift in the level for expensing capital expenditure will incentivise investment

It will be interesting to see what Labour announces in next week’s Budget.

I encourage National to keep rolling out policies like this. If the election is a referendum on who has the best economic plan going forward, this is an excellent start.

A guest post by Simon Lusk:

Two of New Zealand’s largest meat companies, Alliance and Silver Fern Farms, have taking over $75 million of public money for wage subsidies. They are essential industries and are still operating in Level 4. Their taking of the wage subsidy is wrong.  

New Zealand’s economy is going to take a massive hit from Covid-19. Many small businesses are no longer viable, and many people will lose their jobs. We need every cent we can get to help get people new jobs, especially those in hospitality and tourism where their entire industry has been destroyed.

The Wage Subsidy scheme was set up to keep people employed in businesses that were shut down. It was to avoid the mass layoff of workers who were not working through no fault of their own. It was not a hand out to essential industries that are working through the lockdown.

We need our profitable essential industries to be good corporate citizens and not take the wage subsidy that was supposed to keep people unable to work employed in vulnerable small businesses. Silver Fern Farms made a profit of $70.7m in the last financial year, so they are cashed up and do not need a subsidy. Alliance made a profit of $20.7m in 2019 so they are also not like a struggling bar or café that is going to be ruined by Covid-19. They are not even like the plumber or builder or hairdresser who still has a business after the lockdown, but will have lost almost all their revenue for many weeks.

As a taxpayer I am happy to help out those in need in a time of crisis. Most New Zealanders are happy to help out. It is the right thing to do. Alliance & Silver Fern Farms are not in need and are in a far better position that the vast numbers of small businesses and workers who have an incredibly uncertain future. These people are going to be asked to pay taxes to subsidise Alliance & Silver Fern Farms.

Some PR bullshit artist will probably come out to justify these meat companies taking the subsidy saying they “fit the criteria”. This does not make taking the wage subsidy right. Other companies in the industry have chosen not to take it because they are good corporate citizens and are doing the right thing.

If Silver Fern Farms & Alliance do not immediately say they are going to pay this back you can sign a petition asking the government to take it back forcibly. You can choose to boycott these company’s products. You can do what economist Cameron Bagrie suggested and ask supermarkets to refuse to stock their products.

And you can ask your MPs & Ministers to refuse to appoint the directors of Silver Fern Farms or Alliance to any government board, or renew any appointment to any government board. Ministers have the right to decide who represents us on state owned enterprise boards, and they can send a very clear message to the directors of these companies that they need to take their governance role more seriously if they want state appointments. That way there is a personal consequence for the directors who have overseen the wage subsidy. You can see the Alliance Board Members here and the the Silver Fern Farms Board Members here.

Silver Fern Farms & Alliance’s directors should immediately instruct their executives to pay back the wage subsidy. That is what a good corporate citizen would do because it is the right thing to do. Having to pressure them to do the right thing is frustrating, because it should be so obvious to them they do not need to think about it.

To sign a petition to Parliament follow the following link.

That the House of Representatives urge the Government to require businesses such as Silver Fern Farms and the Alliance Group to pay back any wage subsidies they have claimed while their plants are still operating.

Or join the Facebook Page.

Stuff reports:

A prominent developer whose tenants have been hit hard by the coronavirus lockdown has accused ministers of being “divorced from reality” over a warning to councils not to cut rates.

Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford issued a blunt threat last week that any move by local authorities to reduce rates to relieve financial pain for residents and businesses could jeopardise the Government’s willingness to invest in any proposed partnerships.

Rates freezes or reductions were also “unlikely to be effective”, Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta told Stuff.

So you have two Ministers telling Council to whack up rates as much as they can, ignoring the fact many businesses and households have had huge incomes drops.

But Richard Peebles, the developer behind Christchurch’s Riverside Market and Little High food venues, accused them of being clueless about the lockdown’s effect on small businesses and urged them to “get their heads out of the sand”.

“They must live in some sort of vacuum,” he said. “They don’t understand the impact of their decisions on small businesses, and I suggest they actually take time to talk to [them] – if there’s going to be any left.”

Clueless or uncaring?

Steve Elers writes:

This is not an anti-iwi column – I am a registered member of at least six iwi across New Zealand, but I don’t want them or any other community group stopping vehicles.

News reports and a social media video showing patched Mongrel Mob and Tribesman members working alongside each other at checkpoints in Murupara is understandably concerning. …

By allowing these shenanigans to continue, our prime minister, minister of police and police themselves have put our health and safety at risk.

Sure, some iwi checkpoints have police officers assisting them. Having a cop standing next to, or supervising you, doesn’t mean their skills and expertise are transferred to you.

That raises another question – why are police involved in the first place? The police website says: “Where communities have determined to undertake checkpoints to prevent the spread of Covid-19, police is working with those communities and other agencies to ensure checkpoints are safe and not preventing lawful use of the road.”

Oh, please. If police think checkpoints should be operated “to prevent the spread of Covid-19”, then go ahead and do it – with police officers – no-one else. To do otherwise shows police are pandering to certain groups.

It is shameless race based pandering. If non-Maori had set up a illegal checkpoint anywhere in NZ, they’d probably all be in jail.

I got quite mad reading this High Court judgment allowing a Oliver Christiansen to be allowed to see his terminally ill father. It is disgisting that he had to go all the way to court to battle the Ministry of Health on this.

The Ministry not only showed repeated ignorance of the law they were meant to be interpreting, but also lacked common sense and compassion in my opinion.

Here’s my brief summary:

• Christiansen flies home on 23 April from UK to see his father who has brain cancer. His prognosis suddenly shortened and had only days to live.
• OC applied to travel from his quarantine hotel to his family home where his father was spending his final days. The only other people there were his mother, two sisters and a pallative case nurse for a short time every day
• OC asked to be tested for Covid-19 but refused as he had no symptoms
• OC offered conditions such as travelling alone in a private car, quarantining and cleaning the vehicle, only staying at his father’s house until his death, then returning to quarantine and wearing PPE
• The Ministry of Health declined his application to travel three times. The 1st time because he didn’t for the criteria for a medical transfer. The second time because he himself wasn’t critically ill. The third time because he didn’t have serious medical conditions
• All three times the Ministry fucked up. They didn’t actually look at the actual health order passed by the Director-General but instead tried to fit him into a category based on their website info.
• The DG’s order explicitly states you can apply for travel from quarantine on compassionate grounds. This is the criteria he applied under three times, and not once did the MoH actually assess his application on these grounds. He spent days battling them and having to go to court while his father lay dying without him.
• OC went back to MOH and pointed out his application was on compassionate, not medical grounds. Yet time and time again they either didn’t understand or God knows what.
• OC even resorted to e-mailing the DG of Health and the Minister. This got referred back to the same team who again denied it.
• OC even told the DG that the problem was the team was not considering it on compassionate grounds as the DG had not delegated them that authority. He was helpfully pointing out what their problem was, and how to fix it.
• The Judge found that the Ministry of Health made serious errors of law in not considering it on the available grounds. She also found they failed to take into account mandatory relevant considerations.
• The Judge noted also that OC is completely asymptomatic, has his health checked every few days and tried multiple times to get a Covid-19 test taken.
• The Judge also noted it was hard to imagine a better case for compassionate grounds than a parent likely to die within days

As the Judge said it is hard to imagine a more compelling case. The fact that MOH rejected his application not once but three times is basically appalling. This should not have been even a borderline call. The risks were minimal and manageable and the potential harm to OC and his family immense by preventing him to see his dying family.

Thankfully we do have a judiciary that can over-ride capricious decision making by the executive. It is a good reminder of why we should beware granting such huge powers.

And the Ministry of Health should apologise to the Christiansen family for forcing them to go to court because they were incapable to correctly following their own law.

Sadly it seems this is not an isolated case. Stuff reports that there have been a total of 24 requests to visit a dying relative and the Ministry of Health declined all 24 of them. So much for kindness.

.

Yahoo reports:

Germany on Thursday completely banned Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement from carrying out activities on its soil, as police raided mosques and venues linked to the group.

Like the European Union, Germany had until now only outlawed Hezbollah’s military wing while tolerating its political wing.

But in a shift immediately welcomed by the United States and Israel, the German interior ministry said it now considered the entire movement a “Shiite terrorist organisation”.

That’s because it is. New Zealand should do the same.

Andrew Geddis and Claudia Geiringer write:

Secondly, there is a real question as to whether the s 70 notices are ultra vires. Section 70(1)(m) permits a medical officer of health, by way of public notice, to “require to be closed … all premises … of any stated kind or description”. It is by no means clear that permits the Director-General to close all premises, subject to an express exemption – as he did in the order. 

That is a very interesting point. Can a provision to close all premises of a specific kind be used to close basically all premises in NZ?

The s 70(1)(f) notice is arguably even more vulnerable. An initial question is whether the Level 4 Lockdown rules actually are a form of “isolation” or “quarantine”, given the broad exceptions for essential workers and essential activities that attach. Even if they are, it is highly debatable whether the Director-General’s power to “require persons … to be isolated or quarantined” empowers an order isolating or quarantining all persons throughout the country rather than specifically identified individuals. It is a power exercisable by a single public health official, with no requirement to consult anyone else in the making of the decision. Further, whereas s 70(1)(m) is framed as an “order” that must be published or broadcast to the world at large, s 70(1)(f) is framed as a “requirement” and contains no equivalent notice provision. This strongly suggests it is intended to be exercised on an individual-by-individual basis rather than a nationwide one. 

Again a very valid point. Was the intent to quarantine a subset of peeople, rather all NZers?

A third set of questions concerns the consistency of these notices with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 (NZBORA). The effect of that Act is that the Health Act notices can only impose limits on a range of civil and political rights (including the freedoms of expression, association, peaceful assembly and movement) if those limits are “demonstrably justified”. Combating COVID-19 clearly provides an exceptionally strong justification for limiting rights, and any court would be likely to accord the Government considerable latitude. Nevertheless, it can certainly be argued that some of the limits imposed by the notices go beyond what is necessary. For example, the s 70(1)(m) notice prohibits the physical publication and distribution of periodical magazines, despite allowing daily and weekly newspapers to continue to do so.

It’s a pity the magazine publishers have no money to challenge this in court. I think they would have a very good case.

Also we have the situation where the Police have admitted they were acting beyond their legal powers in the first nine days. The BFD has the memo:

I know that staff at the front line are using a range of tactics with the right intent but not supported by the law.

That is from the Deputy Police Commissioner.

What we know now is that those actions were ultra vires: acting or done beyond one’s legal power or authority. Businesses were closed on Police orders, shopkeepers threatened with arrest, and all without any legal basis. This may well open the government up to protracted legal action for harm caused by illegal action by the enforcement arms of the state.

Yes any actions taken in the first nine days before the Director-General of Health issued his notice are shaky.

I’m a supporter of the Level 4 lockdown. I think it is good pretty much everyone except the Minister of Health complied. But it does reek of incompetence that there may have been no legal basis for it for the first nine days, and a somewhat shaky one thereafter.

A more competent course of action would have been to pass specific enabling legislation.

Matthew Hooton writes:

There are early signs of megalomania in the Government’s economic response to Covid-19. It needs to be nipped in the bud.

In recent days, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Finance Minister Grant Robertson have signalled that they don’t see their role as limited to providing a general economic framework and guaranteed family-income system from which the post-Covid economy will evolve. Instead, it seems they want to personally pick which industries are doomed and which are set to thrive. …

We need to speak very plainly about this: these three career politicians have absolutely no idea what sectors of the economy are doomed, which have a future, and whether any particular commercial proposal makes sense. Add Economic Development Phil Twyford to the mix, and it risks the appearance of a circus run by clowns.

Winston thinks that we should and can compete with pharmaceutical giants and manufacture our own medicines. Bet you he won’t invest a cent of his own money in his ideas.

Free-market capitalism works not because it is individualistic — although it is — but because it collectivises everyone’s best guesses and analysis. In contrast, collectivist economic systems reply on the brilliance of individuals or, worse, committees. Again, we should speak plainly: central planners are not just often wrong, but invariably wrong, just like most of us.

Excellent analysis.

David Fisher reports:

Claims all community roadblocks have a police officer present collapsed less than a day after being made with police headquarters now admitting there was no officer at a roadblock on State Highway 1 where motorists were being refused onward travel.

Police had initially claimed the officer was there but have now admitted he was absent for 70 minutes. …

The next morning, an NZME journalist travelling on State Highway 1 north of Houhora in the Far North encountered a roadblock without a police officer. After presenting paperwork showing media were an essential service, those at the roadblock refused to allow onward travel. 

This is disgraceful.

The road blocks are vigilante actions. The Police should have closed them down, not supported them.

As this report shows those running them are stopping New Zealanders from going about their legal work.

Richard Tranter got sentenced to eight years and three months jail for vehicular manslaughter.

The sentence is a pretty long one for vehicular manslaughter but it did make me wonder if whether the degree of sheer recklessness can ever push you over the line to murder? Probably, not but this must come close. The key details:

• 112 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood
• deactivated two of the vehicle’s safety systems – namely the ABS brakes and the dynamic stability control system
• Reached a speed of somewhere between 178 and 186 kph in an 60 km/hr zone
• undertook two vehicles
• Was videoing his own driving with his cellphone and said ” I’m having a good night. I don’t give a fuck in the world. How about that y’all. I think I’m doing 180, I’m not quite sure. It’s alright, we’ll still pass people. Not a care in the world. I don’t give a fuck, why don’t just take the left-hand side, already, three, two, one, wooo. Fuck you. Not a care in the fucking world.
• Then ploughed into a car at an intersection, killing the other driver

The disabling your own safety systems plus the driving at three times the speed limit while videoing your driving is basically as reckless as you can get.

Mediaite reports:

President Donald Trump told Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer to “make a deal” with the “angry” armed protesters who have been protesting the state’s coronavirus lockdown measures, calling them “very good people” in a Friday tweet.

“The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire. These are very good people, but they are angry,” Trump tweeted. “They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal.”

The protests have been ongoing for several weeks and have been covered repeatedly by Fox News. In mid-April, protesters deliberately jammed Michigan roads, while on Thursday, armed protesters stormed the Michigan Capitol in military gear and attempted to gain access to the House floor.

Call me old fashioned but I don’t regard armed people who storm a parliament as “very good people”. They should be treated the same way as if armed antifa activists stormed a state capitol.

In July 2019 I blogged on a laughably light sentence of 30 months for Fraser Milne for the following:

• Driving too fast and swerved to avoid the victims’ car
• Did a u-turn, followed them and forced them to stop
• Demanded they pay for any damage to his car and threatened them that he was in a gang
• They drove away. He followed them and tried to cut them off again.
• They stopped. He tried to force the doors open. Hit the car. Swore at them and yelled his pit bull would eat them
• They drove away. He went to some shops where he made racist remarks about the victims (they were NZ Chinese) and spotted them driving past.
• He chased them for 10 minutes of over 140 km/hr
• When they wouldn’t stop, he hit the back end of their car with his, causing their car to flip into the air
• The car landed upside down. It almost slid down a steep bank. Two children were thrown from the car.
• He approached the upside down car and rather than offer assistance continued to yell racial slurs and threaten violence to the father
• All five people in the car had injuries including a skull fracture in the youngest child

The Court of Appeal has seen sense and increased the sentence to 57 months.

Newshub reports:

Judith Collins has hit David Clark with perhaps the most damaging insult she can come up with, calling the Health Minister “the Phil Twyford of this year”. 

That’s a great sledge but it got me thinking.

Should we turn this into an annual award?

It could be awarded for the Minister who has the biggest gap between what they promised and what they delivered?

Finalists at this stage would have to be David Clark and Shane Jones.

The Daily Mail reports:

When Panorama turned its gunson the PPE crisis, five medics savaged the Tories’ approach. Yet they ALL had Labour links. …

Fallout from its overnight broadcast led the BBC’s Tuesday morning bulletins.

But it has since emerged that all five of the doctors and nurses Panorama chose to interview were longstanding Labour Party activists or supporters.

This was not shared with viewers, in what appears to be a flagrant breach of BBC guidelines.

Every single person interviewed was a Labour candidate, member, activist or supporter, yet the BBC said nothing.

OF course not even disclosure would be enough. You can’t claim to be a neutral broadcaster and spend an entire program quoting activists for one party.

The Government has published the final version of the Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill which will go to a referendum with the election.

The summary of it is here. Key aspects are:

1. Allow adults aged over 20 to buy cannabis from licensed retailers
2. Adults aged over 20 can grow 2 cannabis plants at home, to a maximum of 4 per household
3. Adults aged over 20 can legally possess up to 14 grams (a joint has 0.3 to 1 gram generally) of dried cannabis
4. Those under 20 who possess cannabis can get fined but not a criminal record
5. There would be potency limits and quality standards for cannabis
6. Cannabis products would have to show the amount of THC and CBD and recommended maximum daily limits
7. Advertising of cannabis products would be banned
8. Health warnings would be placed on cannabis products
9. An excise tax based on weight and potency would be levied and would fund services to reduce harms from drug use

Looks infinitely better than the status quo I have to say.