Records Confirm Johnson Met with Lockdown-Sceptics at Key COVID Turning Point – Byline Times

4 comments

1. >
   Byline Times can reveal private meetings between Boris Johnson and multiple senior right-wing media figures, while the Prime Minister weighed up the merits of a circuit-breaker lockdown. The BBC was the only other outlet to gain access to Boris Johnson in this period – via a meeting with director general Tim Davie and director of BBC News Fran Unsworth.

   >Meetings held with Prime Minister Boris Johnson

   > * 18 September – Rupert Murdoch, News Corp
   * 21 September – Aidan and Howard Barclay, the Telegraph
   * 21 September – Rebekah Brooks, News UK
   * 21 September – Lord Rothermere, Daily Mail
   * 21 September – Victoria Newton, The Sun
   * 21 September – Geordie Grieg, Daily Mail
   * 21 September – Tony Gallagher, The Times
   * 21 September – Chris Evans, the Telegraph
   * 23 September – Fraser Nelson, the Spectator

2. Boris Johnson meets with senior figures of papers that support Tories. Shock horror…

   What a complete non-story. And tbh he should have been meeting with lockdown sceptics (although scientists rather than journalists). You have to consult with a opinions across the scientific (and economic and social) world

3. I don’t think many people can honestly argue the first lockdown wasn’t necessary. But the overall value of the extent and number of the future lockdowns/restrictive measures is a lot more opaque. What the covid inquiry is revealing (at least IMO) is that the incompetence of the government was more than a little responsible for us being left with no choice but to shut down and limit massive areas of our economy.

   There should have been a government of national unity formed from the most qualified and expert members of all political parties as soon as COVID became something more than the ‘swine flu’ type pandemics we had seen in the past. Party politics (even internal party politics) should have been set aside to guide the country through what has turned to be an even bigger mess than it had already been. The fact that no senior Labour MPs/Shadow Ministers did not call for this also shows Labour’s political agenda. They were happy to sit back and watch as Johnson’s cabal ran the economy, the health and social care services and the population into the ground.

   If another pandemic of a similar or even greater scale/severity of COVID were to occur in the future, the public will be much more resistance to lockdown measures and I don’t think anyone can blame them.

4. “Politician chats with outlets that largely support his party”

   I’m shook. What with Farage doing exclusives for the Guardian and Starmer having dinners with the editor of the express, I expected more.

   /s