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Thursday 9 July 2020

Cummings’ Expensive Goings

The exhibitions of conspicuous public sector consumption embarked upon by alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson during his time as occasional Mayor of London are well known: the vanity buses, vanity cable car, study for a vanity airport, vanity water cannon, vanity Orbit thingy in the Olympic Park, and vanity Garden Bridge that (fortunately) never saw the light of day, all were part of Bozo’s London legacy.
Perhaps that is what has influenced the behaviour of his chief Downing Street polecat Dominic Cummings, whose activities are allegedly attracting an increasing number of potential and actual significantly-sized payouts, the latest of which was even confirmed by the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog.
Polecat Dom has been so determined to reshape the Downing Street operation, and perhaps even the entire Civil Service machinery, that the not really very creative destruction which has followed has meant a number of senior staff departing from Government service. These departures have been the subject of More And Bigger Paycheques For Departing Former Civil Servants Personally Now.
The first high-profile example of this - for which We The People are paying - is about to come to the boil. As Joe Twyman of Deltapoll noted last month, “An employment lawyer has gone through the details of Sonia Khan's dismissal and suggests 'Cummings could find himself jointly and severally liable for the compensation' and that it's unlikely Ms Khan will be 'claiming anything less than six figures’”. Who she?
Ms Khan worked for former Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid. After Dom and his pals wrongly concluded that the leaked Operation Yellowhammer documents had been leaked by Saj’s predecessor Spreadsheet Phil, she was marched out of Downing Street with a Police escort, protesting her innocence. And there is more.
Earlier this year, Home Office Permanent Secretary Philip Rutnam departed and promptly passed severely adverse comment on Priti Patel, effectively accusing here of bullying. A number of right-wing media outlets - including The Great Guido - ran knocking copy on him. Nick Eardley of the BBC noted in April “Ex-Home Office chief Sir Philip Rutnam has formally lodged an employment tribunal claim against Home Secretary Priti Patel”.

Another big-ticket item for the Polecat to ponder. And now has come the departure of Mark Sedwill, formerly the country’s chief Civil Servant. He had been the subject of yet more of those hostile briefings by “senior Downing Street sources”, which means leaks by, or on behalf of, the Polecat. Former minister Ed Balls then saw the payout Sedwill was getting.
Except this time it's Loadsa OUR Money

As the Peston show Twitter feed told, “‘It's astonishing - I've never seen anything like it’ [Ed Balls] tells [Robert Peston] the £250,000 payout to departing cabinet secretary Mark Sedwill looks to him like the basis of a legal settlement”. The Fawkes massive confirms that Sedwill had effectively sacked. By order, it seems, of the Polecat.

At least Sedwill’s payoff won’t attract a big legal bill. Those for Rutnam and Ms Khan certainly will. Looks like the Cummings goings will burn through their first million very soon.

Not that the right-wing Astroturfers will complain. He may be an SOB, but he’s their SOB.
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7 comments:

Jonathan said...

These corrupt and narcissitic rightwingers have a lot in common with the Orange Buffoon's administration firing of anyone who doesn't share their allegiance to a false ideology and are wee bit sensitive to constructive criticism.

So just like a good dictatorship they purge government of anyone who dares show a hint of opposition and ethics.
Let's hope Dom's bank account takes a few massive hits unless Bozza has promised to indemnify his losses!

Stephen said...

Jonathan - It's what the Nazis did, though they at least had the sense to add their own party members to the civil service rather than using them as a replacement. (They still tried to take over though, which is what made the civil service under Hitler so bad.)

AndyC said...

Jonathan wrote -'...unless Bozza has promised to indemnify his losses!'

If it comes to that it will probably be the tax payer who has to cough up. I await the Tax-Payers Alliance's take on it.

Unknown said...

£250,000 isn't that much. If you believe their claim that they've spent £15bn on PPE then they've spent almost a quarter of a million quid for each and every one of us.

Aren't we lucky!

Jonathan said...

Yes,I remember, probably going to take an United NATO force to free us from the Tories!

Anonymous said...

Dangerous seditious talk here.

Anybody would think a revolution looked likely.....

The Toffee (597) said...

@unknown 9 July 2020 at 21:57.

15bn divided by 60mn works out to around £2,500 per person. Not a quarter mill per person, but still a sum I'd imagine has been exaggerated.