Monday 20 January 2020

Johnson avoiding scrutiny

With the target requiring hospitals to treat 95% "of A&E arrivals within four hours" not having been met since July 2015, and "performance dropping 10% in the past year alone", it is difficult to see Matt Hancock`s plan to remove it as anything other than "moving goalposts to avoid scrutiny" (Doctors lead outcry at plan to scrap waiting time target, 16/01/20). In fact, the avoidance of having to face embarrassing figures and results is the one clear policy which has emerged from the Johnson/Cummings administration since the election, and as it was the funding and staffing of the NHS which caused the Tories most worries during the election campaign, this target-scrapping is hardly surprising.
      Indeed, it is almost definitely the tip of the iceberg, with evading scrutiny bound to be at the core of any government headed by a man whose entire career has been based on "winging-it", and whose election campaign included welching on interviews and debates, and hiding in a fridge!  Johnson has already made a prime ministerial commitment to "cabinet government", which, as everyone knows, is an excuse for him to avoid parliamentary scrutiny at the despatch box. Add to this his all too conspicuous penchant for overlong sunshine breaks, and the decision to restrict the inevitably embarrassing  PMQs to thirty minutes, and the obvious conclusion is that the only target that matters is the one regarding Johnson`s rating at the polls!

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