In Prime Minister’s Questions this afternoon, Green MP Caroline Lucas referred to Chancellor Philip Hammond’s statement to the Treasury Select Committee about the supposed impact of disabled people in the workplace on national productivity.
Calling it ‘extraordinary’ and without evidence – and his failure to apologise ‘disgraceful’ – she asked Theresa May whether she was prepared to tell him to apologise.
May not only failed to tell Hammond to apologise, but denied that he had said any such thing.
Here’s a video showing May’s denial and what Hammond said, so you can decide whether May misled Parliament – which, under the ministerial code of conduct, is supposed to be a resignation offence:
If the Prime Minister misled Parliament, then it was either a brazen or a toweringly stupid act to do so on something that she must have known was available on video for anyone to check.
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Reblogged this on michaelsnaith.
Don’t get your hopes raised. May will never resign, unfortunately.
She’s not called #MaybottheMendacious for nothing. She appears to be a consummate liar.
Delay, deny, defend … Tory mantra
I thought it was Delay, Deny, Hope You Die! (Universal Credit motto)
Even leaving aside the wilfully odious morality of Hammond’s claim, it is surely false, even in the narrow technical sense he intended.
It’s the assorted lepers and simpletons of the Parliamentary Conservative Party, Hammond included, that are negatively impacting national productivity
Hammond is living proof that the deluded are overly prone to projection and May’s away with the fairies.
She lies daily in the commons! If her mouth is speaking it’s lies!! The trouble is once it’s said millions have heard it and believe it, then don’t see the proof that it’s lies!! That’s what they depend on! It’s the biggest aberration in politics that you can’t call someone a liar in the commons!!!
Yet another blatant lie by May!
Evidence of that fact is plain to see and hear!
Will she, be brought to book?
Will she, jump before she’s fired?
For bringing parliament into disrepute!
Does May deserve to be drummed out of her job?
“YES, SHE DOES”!
I just did a search (on duckduckgo) to ascertain how much coverage this got – ie >caroline lucas theresa may philip hammond disabledhttps://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5081037/britain-will-pay-50bn-brexit-bill-even-if-we-dont-get-a-trade-deal-philip-hammond-says-as-he-admits-ministers-dont-know-what-sort-of-deal-they-want/<
I don’t know what happened above, but most of my post was missing, so I’ll try again:
I just did a search (on duckduckgo) to ascertain how much coverage this got – ie >caroline lucas theresa may philip hammond disabledhttps://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5081037/britain-will-pay-50bn-brexit-bill-even-if-we-dont-get-a-trade-deal-philip-hammond-says-as-he-admits-ministers-dont-know-what-sort-of-deal-they-want/<
Same again – maybe it’s the arrows – so I’ll remove them and try one last time:
I just did a search (on duckduckgo) to ascertain how much coverage this got – ie caroline lucas theresa may philip hammond disabled – and was very surprised to find that The Sun came up in the list of search results, but it turns out the article (dated the 6th December and updated on the 7th) is mainly about something else involving Hammond, and the disabled comment gets a just one sentence mention. There is also a picture of Caroline Lucas with the caption: ‘Caroline Lucas blasted the Chancellor for his comments’, but if you didn’t already know what actually happened – as I’m sure 99.999% of Sun readers didn’t – then you more-than-likely would have thought Caroline was ‘blasting’ Hammond for what the article was primarily about.
Needless to say, if it had been Jeremy Corbyn who had misled Parliament, it would have been headline news on the front page of The Sun, and calling for him to resign:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5081037/britain-will-pay-50bn-brexit-bill-even-if-we-dont-get-a-trade-deal-philip-hammond-says-as-he-admits-ministers-dont-know-what-sort-of-deal-they-want/
As far as I can gather, apart from the one sentence mention in The Sun, the only main stream media outlets that covered it were Sky News, The Huffington Post, and the Daily Mirror. Check out the comments from the Tory Central Office troll posing as a working class guy etc in the Mirror:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/theresa-just-denied-philip-hammond-11687887
Mike on vox political sums it all up perfectly (this was at the time Hammond made the comment AND prior to Caroline Lucas getting involved):
http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2017/12/07/chancellor-blames-fall-in-uk-productivity-on-disabled-people-in-the-workforce/#comment-104303
The CCHQ / MSM panto act is coming apart at the seams.
I think this whole spectacle of Hammond’s initial claim and May’s subsequent, and outright, lie should be followed up remorselessly by the independent Left media, on blogs, social media and all other platforms.
It represents such a striking new low, even by contemporary Tory standards, and is such a blatant example of the Tory’s true nature that there is considerable hay still to be made out of it.
For instance, I wonder how Hammond would respond to invitations to comment on May’s account of what he did or did not say?
Had Labour politicians conducted themselves similarly, the Tories and MSM would have turned it into a carnival circus, and rightly so.
Typical of the complete shithouses.
And they complain of ‘abuse’ ffs.
Reblogged this on sideshowtog.