The point of it all

At its most simple, Brexit was about restoring sovereignty to Parliament, that is Westminster.

UK laws for UK people.

Simple.

And through the Brexit process, during the legal fight over the A50 notification letter, a number of so-called Henry VIII powers were looked at and limited.

At the time this seemed odd that the Government of the day, was happy to have its powers defined and limited. Escially as there was a growing suspicion in my mind that Brexit wasn't really about Brexit at all or restoring sovereignty, or not to Parliament, but to the Executive only.

Ad through the COVID crisis we have seen how the Government and Johnson and his Ministers are only to happy to pass laws using emergency legislation even when what they are passing is not an emergency. Want an example? Well, the relaxing of the latest lockdown, which occurred on Monday 8th March 2021, this was passed under SIs. It was not an emergency, new powers to limit rights of the people were not being enacted, rather their rights were being partially restored.

And yet this was passed, at the last minte, via Statuatory Instruments, SIs, with no scrutiny and set to last for 5 weeks.

This loosening was broadcast at least a week before, so not an emergency in any way, and yet passed using Public Health legislation as a cover for their SIs.

Same for the procurement of PPE during the first wave. Clearly some was emergency purchases, but 30 years of medical coveralls certainly wasn't. And yet emergency laws were used to award direct contracts, and not publish the details, sometimes until three months after signature, and even then only when there was court action pending. Some £32 billion was spent on such PPE, mostly from companies with no previous experience in the field, or from start-up companies which most had links either to the Conservative Party as doners or family and friends of MPs and Ministers or their advisors.

£23 billion has been spent by Dido Harding, an unelected Member of the House of Lords and married to a Conservative MP who happens to be the Government's corruption zsar! She has been given a further £15 billion to spend this financial year. Nothing has been revealed where the money has gone, other than some external consultants were on £7,000 a day working on it. And a group of MPS reported yesterday that they can find no evidence that the program had any effect whatsoever on controlling the virus!

Many of us have little comprehension of these vast sums, but someone on Twitter helped out:

22 thousand seconds is 6 hours.

22,000,000 seconds is 41 days.

22 billion seconds is 697 YEARS.

The sums that Harding has spent is almost unbelieveable.

She will spend more this next year.

Dominic Cummings was given four times as much for his Operation Moonshot program for quicker testing. No idea if he spent all the money or the program was successful.

But remember all of the above when a Minister or Prime Minister tells you or a reporter there is no money to pay doctors and nurses any more than 1% a year extra. They have been spending OUR money, not just from a magic money tree, but from a magic money tree orchard, with no oversight, no scrutiny, and now want us to pay for it with more huge cuts in public spending.

And the very people that should be holding them to account, the media and journalists, either went to the same schools as the Mnisters, or worked with them on newspapers.

Reigning back the powers they have used and the Single Market Bill has given them, will be hard. If not impossible, as people seem not to care. And with the Harry and Meghan story taking literally all the headlines, Johnson and co are getting away with murder. 124, 796 have died thus far, and thousands more will die in the future of the Government get the unlocking of the country wrong.

But Meghan!