Subject: Dissatisfaction with the Government

Dear Mrs Nokes

We are writing to you to express our concern about a number of important and related issues. We do not expect a response to each of them but wish you to be aware of our concerns and expect you to consider them when scrutinising the government.

General competence of the Johnson government

During our adult lives, our votes have never resulted in a government of our choice. Yet we never doubted that the elected governments, whether Labour or Conservative, had a mandate to govern, had (even if we disagreed with specific policies) the best interests of the whole country in mind, and would govern competently. However, since the referendum in 2016 we do not believe any government has acted in the interests of the nation, nor governed competently. In the case of Brexit the May government deliberately alienated half the voters and refused to be honest with the other half about the consequences of what they voted for.

Since Johnson became PM, we have seen outright dishonesty, lies, and incompetence. This has become considerably worse since the Coronavirus crisis. The government was asleep at the wheel in January and February when the rest of the world was taking rapid action to deal with the crisis. It was not until mid March that serious action was put in place, long after the population as a whole was recognising that action was needed. We certainly accept some reports that tens of thousands of deaths in the UK resulted from these delays, deaths the government and PM are directly responsible for.

We have seen the PM and other cabinet ministers blatantly lying in the daily briefings on testing, on the acquisition and deployment of PPE, on the “protective ring” put around care homes, on the publishing of statistics. For no good reason they set arbitrary targets, use creative accounting to claim they’ve met them, then stop publishing them when they are not meeting them. International comparisons that do not show the UK in a good light are no longer published, and we literally are fed up of hearing the term “World leading” to cover up government incompetence and delay. In engaging with the media the government will not allow ministers to be interviewed by channels and journalists likely to submit them to difficult questions on their record. This is unacceptable in a functioning democracy.

In recent weeks, since the daily briefings stopped, these blatant lies now happen in Parliament, in particular PMQs. Every week Johnson lies. Yet apparently Parliamentary procedures do not allow such lies to be challenged (rules established when it was believed “gentlemen do not lie”). Recent examples include the claim that no country had yet deployed a Tracing app (provable lie), the claimed culpability of care home managers for fatalities, and last week that the government only recently became aware of the possibility of asymptomatic transmission (which was well known in February, if not earlier, and was the primary reason for the lockdowns). You, as our MP, have a responsibility to challenge these lies and hold the government to account for them. Yet we see no evidence of this happening.

We have seen government confusion and chaotic communications on the wearing of masks, until the announcement today. As usual, it seems to prefer to pander to the libertarian wing of the Tory party and the media, rather than what is best for the people of this nation. Other countries with much lower fatality rates use them, so the evidence is clear.

We see little evidence of national coordination with the governments of Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, or the London Mayor, and instead read that Johnson has not spoken to these administrations for months. These parts of the UK appear to have much clearer policies and communication of those policies than Johnson does for England. As we exercise and shop we see the “1m plus mitigations” has become a de facto 1m, if at all.

The government seems far more concerned with reopening shops, gyms, pubs than it does with enabling us to meet and care for our grandchildren (thank you for forwarding the response from Vicky Ford, but it was not at all helpful, as we think you know). Again, the Scottish and Welsh governments have much more sensitive and clear policies on these matters.

In other countries we see much lower fatality and infection rates being in place before they relax lockdowns. In this country relaxation is happening with much higher rates. It remains to be seen whether we will enter the Winter period with a second wave.

Coinciding with that is the end of the transition period for Brexit. Based on your response to us, you have clearly adopted the government’s party line. But again we see no clear plan for what happens next, the government again refuses to explain that there are tradeoffs, and dishonest language (“Australian trade deal”) from Johnson. The government clearly is pandering to the ERG extremists who now are saying they didn’t understand what they voted for in the Withdrawal Agreement (the one that Johnson personally renegotiated with the EU!).

These are just some examples of how angry we are with the general incompetence and dishonesty of this government.

Who elected Dominic Cummings?

One of the claimed motivations for the Leave vote was to free the country from “unelected bureaucrats in Brussels”. Yet since Johnson became PM he has placed an unelected person into a privileged position in government. Not only is Dominic Cummings unelected, but appears unaccountable to anyone in parliament or in the Cabinet and for reasons that escape us seems to be unsackable. Whilst we saw your dissatisfaction with the handling of his excursion to Durham and Barnard Castle and that he was in clear breach of the rules in place, he has not been held to account for those breaches. Johnson, and other cabinet ministers, continue to support the claim that Cummings complied with the rules and any (for example) scientific adviser at the daily briefings who said otherwise has not been seen again. That’s clearly unacceptable.

Cummings appears to have a personal mission to transform our government, the civil service, the rules of good governance, yet this mandate did not come from the electorate. Did you have a say in giving him this role? Did anyone in parliament? How does he get to decide to upturn the functioning of government?

We see long standing professional senior civil servants being sacked, retired, side lined. We see long standing rules of procurement designed to prevent corruption and provide value for money to the taxpayer being discarded. Substantial contracts seem to be going to cronies of Cummings and other politicians without open tender and to companies with no track record in providing those products and services. Whether in procuring PPE, tracing Apps, testing and tracing, these are often huge contracts requiring fair contracting arrangements and value for money. As a very experienced IT project manager one of us could see that the tracing app was a troubled project from the start. And as an experienced public health professional, the other of us could see the test and trace contract was poor value for money and obvious approaches used before here and elsewhere should have been used instead.

Last week, we saw ERG Chair Mark Francois threatening the Chief of Defence Staff with Cummings. How is that possible, how is that acceptable, in a mature democracy once renowned for good, competent, governance generally free of corruption?

Cummings (and indeed the Johnson government) has no mandate for any of this and we urge you to hold them to account.

Post Covid Recovery

One thing the government did act quickly on was to intervene to support the economy, businesses, and citizens at the start of lockdown. We are fortunate in being retired with a secure income and savings. Our children are also fortunate in having secure jobs.

However, this crisis has resulted in large swathes of the economy being closed down to prevent the spread of the virus. Businesses that in normal times would be thriving, or at least viable, are very likely to be forced out of business (I’m sure you see examples in your own constituency) and individuals who thought they had secure employment find they are out of work, or will do as government support is withdrawn.

None of these businesses, when seeking loans and investment were asked what their contingency plan was for a global pandemic. Similarly individuals were not asked this for their mortgage loans. Yet the crisis is likely to leave these, through no fault of their own, out of business or unable to pay their loans. It will also affect their credit ratings and very likely leave them unable to borrow money in the future. This is perverse and unacceptable, especially as “vulture capitalists” are certain to swoop in buying up assets, properties, and businesses probably by borrowing money from the same banks foreclosing on the current borrowers.

Those businesses (banks, airlines, global businesses) that could reasonably have planned for a global pandemic, simply seem to have transferred their risk to employees, customers, suppliers, and governments. The lessons of the 2008 crash must be learnt and this cannot be allowed to happen. We have learnt that those most vital to keeping us alive and society functioning are not billionaire tax exiles, self styled entrepreneurs, or hedge fund managers. Yet we see the unedifying sight of MPs, ministers, the media clapping the real essential workers and then refusing to reward them or support them with essential equipment.

There has to be an acceptance that this isn’t a normal recession but a once in a century crisis that no one can reasonably have expected to have foreseen or prepared for. Of course, the pandemic may well result in long term or permanent changes in demand for certain products and services and how they are bought and fulfilled. The government may well have to make decisions on supporting businesses that may not ultimately be viable, but the alternative of letting the market play out (once again) with those who have money profiting at the expense of those who don’t, condemns millions to a bleak future.

We look to you to represent the interests of those most in need of help in recovering from the crisis, and not let the richest in society off the hook. They’re only rich because the state provides (or used to) them with a functioning society to become rich in.

Long term: the climate crisis

Many view the pandemic as a dry run for the climate crisis. We’ve known about it for decades (Thatcher was warning about it 40 years ago) and done very little about it. Our grandchildren really do face a bleak future if the world does not act quickly to eliminate carbon emissions and transform the global economy to a sustainable future. The pandemic has shown that consumers reducing their usage of fossil fuels is far from enough to do this and we need to totally transform our energy production, distribution, and consumption, as well as our transportation infrastructure. And to do so quickly.

Our great grandparents’ generation did this in providing electricity and piped clean water to every home, and infrastructure for the motor car in the first half of the 20th Century. So, it can be done, even with two world wars (and their own global pandemic) in the way.

In investing for the post Covid future, not only must action to address the climate crisis not be delayed yet again, but must be used to invest in a sustainable future for the planet. Investment must be accelerated. Our grandchildren will not thank us if we leave a planet uninhabitable for them but proudly proclaim “but we got the deficit down”. There is a golden opportunity for a better future and we must take it. In the Dec 2019 election, 95% of voters voted for parties committed to eliminating UK carbon emissions on or before 2050. All but ten MPs now in parliament (including some notorious climate change deniers in the Tory party) stood on manifestoes to do this. So, the popular will is there.

International collaboration will be essential and we must work closely with our neighbours rather than those countries that continue to depend on fossil fuels and obstruct action. They will be left behind in the economy of the 21st Century.

We look to you to demand the government take rapid action to commit this transformation and to thwart those deliberately seeking to obstruct it (in government, parliament, and the media).

Summary

We appreciate this letter has covered many issues and you may not agree with some of them or the actions to address. However, what we do expect of our MP is to scrutinise the government effectively, hold them to account, and counter demonstrable lies and incompetence. For the first time in our lives we see a government that does not represent us in any form and which seeks to deliberately harm the country. In our circle of friends and family, almost all feel the same way. Since 2016 we have taken part, also for the first time in our lives, in at least six large demonstrations in London. We will do so again and consider more robust civil disobedience if necessary, if once again the weakest in society bear the brunt of this crisis and the wealthy amass and hoard wealth at the expense of a sustainable society.

Please understand our anger at what is happening and we hope you will consider our arguments in your dealings with the government.

Yours sincerely

Dr EJW and Mrs KM West