Oh SHIT ... might really get the boot this time
Overnight, the last act of ineptitude we knew about concerned Ms Braverman getting herself a speeding fine and then allegedly using her own civil servants to try and get herself a one-on-one speed awareness course, having been offered the usual course variant, seeing that she would have been part of a group, making excuses about security, and hence the allegation.
Use of civil service resources for the personal benefit of Herself Personally Now would be a potential breach of the ministerial code. That’s the kind of thing that got her sacked by Liz Truss during the latter’s signally disastrous but thankfully brief premiership. That was bad, but thanks to Lizzie Dearden of the Independent, we now have another gaffe to add to the pile.
The revelation had to wait while the Indy and its staff covered the overnight disturbance in the Ely district of Cardiff, but now we know. “Suella Braverman is facing fresh allegations of ministerial code breaches over her failure to formally disclose previous work with the Rwandan government … She was the director of a charity training its lawyers for five years”. Do go on.
“The home secretary co-founded a charity called the Africa Justice Foundation with Cherie Blair, which trained Rwandan government lawyers between 2010 and 2015 … Several people the charity worked with are now key members of President Paul Kagame’s government and are involved in the UK’s £140m deal to send asylum seekers to Rwanda”. Whoops!
There was more. “Ms Braverman did not officially disclose her previous links to the country when appointed home secretary in 2022, despite the deal being a lynchpin of the government’s migration policy and ongoing legal challenges alleging politically-driven human rights violations including torture, murder and kidnappings”. And who would like to comment on this one?
I theught you said your deug did not bite
“One former minister told The Independent that the home secretary ‘never mentioned’ her work with the charity and should have been ‘upfront and transparent’, while two former standards chiefs said Ms Braverman should have formally disclosed her former role”. And more. A lot more.
“Ms Braverman resigned from her post as director of the Africa Justice Foundation weeks before being elected to parliament, and did not declare her previous role to Home Office permanent secretary Matthew Rycroft last year … A source close to the home secretary said it was not necessary for her to disclose her previous work, adding: ‘This was charity work carried out by Ms Braverman before she was an MP, and for which she wasn’t paid.’”
So what? The potential for corruption is in the category of the bleeding obvious. Hence “Sir Alistair Graham, former head of the Committee of Standards on Public Life, [said] ‘If the Rwanda policy was there when she produced a declaration of interest, and did not include it, then I would have thought that could be a breach of the ministerial code’”. Indeed.
Instead, though, we get “look over there - it was unpaid”. Back to the Indy: “Records obtained by The Independent show that the charity received more than £300,000 in donations and spent the bulk of the funding on a scholarship scheme seeing Rwandan government lawyers sent to British universities”.
With the result that “By the time Ms Braverman resigned her directorship in 2015, Rwandan media reported that 19 alumni were serving in government institutions including the Office of the President, the Office of the Prime Minister and Rwanda Law Reform Commission, and research by The Independent shows that some now hold senior posts in the country’s Ministry of Justice”. Of course she should have disclosed her involvement.
What is Rishi Sunak waiting for? Another gaffe, then another? Sack her. Now.
https://www.patreon.com/Timfenton
She probably did it in a rit of fealous jage.
ReplyDeletetories are like that.
What's the odds she "forgot"?
Thieves amnesia.
As the polar bear said to the Titanic first responders, "Any news on the iceberg?"
ReplyDelete