The 10 Downing Street press office’s avoidance of any questions about the meeting – bizarrely trumpeted by Theresa May during this week’s PMQs (Prime Minister’s Questions) – of her ‘Rough-sleeping task-force’ continues.
Mrs May was responding to a question from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who pointed out that the task force was announced last November but, four months later, did not appear to have met. Oddly, Mrs May appeared to think that saying it had met for the first time that very morning was a triumph:
No. 10 has stated that an announcement was made ‘a couple of weeks ago’ that a meeting would take place without any specific date being mentioned, but refused to say when a firm date for the meeting was arranged – or who attended it.
In follow-up questions, the SKWAWKBOX asked, if details of the attendees could not be disclosed, for confirmation of how long the meeting lasted – and how many people were present.
The response:
We wouldn’t provide any further details like this.
So, on Wednesday Theresa May claimed that the rough-sleeping task-force – which had not met during four of the coldest months of the year and which mentioned meeting two weeks ago but did not meet during the recent vicious, nationwide freeze – met for the first time on Wednesday morning, just in time for PMQs.
But nobody will say when the meeting was arranged, who attended, how many attended or how long it lasted.
The members of the task-force are all Tory MPs, so there is nobody even quasi-independent to ask for more information:
The SKWAWKBOX is attempting to find out whether minutes were taken and whether a civil service functionary attended to minute the ‘meeting’ and arrange any resulting actions.
But on the evidence available – or rather, not available – so far, it looks entirely possible that a couple of the above MPs chatted in a corridor for a couple of minutes and called it a meeting, in an attempt to save Theresa May’s blushes by allowing her to claim the ‘task-force’ had met.
For that matter, there’s no proof that any meeting took place at all – merely Theresa May’s claim that it did.
Even on the most charitable interpretation, this sorry sequence tells a bleak tale of the paucity of the government’s concern for the plight of Britain’s rough sleepers – which seems dwarfed by their concern for appearances and PR.
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Prior to her pathetic attempt at PMQ’s to diss Corbyn, in answer to the homeless task force enquiry of his, she appeared to be sharply taken aback and looked completely stricken and unprepared for the question, whilst behind her a spad hurriedly scrabbled through his folder, appearing to look for any kind of answer to this awkward question. The gofer then handed a document to the front bench, presumably to pass on that embarrassing answer to May.
Oh, well it was obviously just a coincidence then that the task force just happened to meet for the first time the very morning of the day when JC was planning to enquire of her why it hadn’t had a meeting in the four months since it was formed.
I jest of course!
If what you say happened, then it was just a bit of theatre to get JC believing that he’d got her. I mean WHY would she have any reason to be taken aback and completely stricken etc if the task force had met (sort of) that very morning. They were just playing games. And the very fact that they won’t answer any of the questions that skwawkbox is asking is for the obvious reason – ie the meeting was hobbled together at the last moment. Literally!
When are the questions submitted to No 10 prior to PMQs?
I venture to suggest the meeting was hastily assembled once No 10 became aware of Corbyn’s question specifically so May could say well they’ve just met….
Questions are not submitted (prior to PM’s Questions), and they supposedly don’t know what questions will be raised by opposition parties (but will of course have been briefed re questions from her own backbenchers,at the very least).
See Parliament.UK website.
The information above is vitally important as we can now all ask these honorable members what they have achieved so far. Meaning that in time they will have done nothing, and so will prove how worthless their contribution in parliament actually is.
This for each of those politicians is like sitting on a gunpowder keg, waiting for someone to light the fuse.
It would appear that this Task Force so-called was put together purely for cosmetic purposes, and THAT is no doubt why all of those on it are Tories. But JC is on to them now, so unfortunately for THEM, they’ll have to be seen to be doing something in the coming weeks and months, unless that is they want it to be exposed for the farce that it is.
Keep on skwawking at them Skwawkbox!
The Govn are given advanced warning of the questions that are going to be asked by the Opposition.
How else do you think she has all her answers of statistics in her folder.
Granted she will obfuscate, lie,make outrageous claims to the contrary, but her office will have had at least an hour’s notice of what was going to be asked.
So Parliament.UK is wrong, is it? I don’t think so. But just out of interest, what is YOUR soursce.
https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/business/questions/
Just came across this article on the huffpost (be sure and watch the video):
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/london-freeze-swep-rough-sleepers_uk_5a9e9473e4b0479c0256dfb6?utm_hp_ref=uk-homepage&ncid=newsletter-ukUKDailyBrief03092018
Beyond a piss-take.
And nobody in Govt or the MSM will do a dicky-bird about it. They merely shrugged their shoulders when dicky(head) davis said he’d done all sorts of impact assessments but hadn’t…Nor did the committee he was up in front of nail the bone-idle, lying twunt for it.
If they didn’t even so much as scold him for that, then they’re not even gonna ‘tut’ or roll their eyes at this. They’d rather watch prue leith bake a f***ing fairy cake.
The whole bastard lot of them are as useful as a handbrake on a camel.
Hey Skwawkbox, Namaste 🙂
The sinister wicked witch is still masticating on flies and lies, still doing nothing whilst she laughs about homelessness live on T.V in front of the world. What better proof is needed that this vile pile of flesh and bone needs to go back under her stone.
Namaste 🙂
DN
Surely with a little bit of detective work it must be possible to establish what the majority (if not all) of the Taskforce members were actually doing on Wednesday morning and establish whether it was practical for them to have attended this meeting that our PM professes to have taken place.