{"id":1246,"date":"2023-12-12T17:01:10","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T17:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/?p=1246"},"modified":"2023-12-12T17:01:10","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T17:01:10","slug":"lies-damned-lies-and-government-statements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/?p=1246","title":{"rendered":"Lies, damned lies and government statements"},"content":{"rendered":"

LIFE can be strange sometimes \u2013 wouldn\u2019t you agree? There\u2019s a lot been happening in my own lately, but I\u2019ll keep that for another time.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Being out of the frontline media world for a time doesn\u2019t mean I haven\u2019t been watching what\u2019s been going on around me, especially in the increasingly fractious world of politics.<\/p>\n

Westminster especially has displayed itself beyond any doubt as having all the appeal of a no-mark banana republic; a government whose support for its friends knows no bounds and whose disdain for millions of those who are less fortunate has further widened the gap between the \u2018haves\u2019 and \u2018have-nots\u2019.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure most of us have never seen an administration so packed with avaricious, compulsive liars, crooks, spivs and snake oil salesmen.<\/p>\n

Lies about Downing Street parties during the Covid pandemic, lies about the effects of Brexit \u2013 every time they open their mouths, more lies come out.<\/p>\n

Although this link is titled \u201cBoris Johnson Lies\u201d https:\/\/boris-johnson-lies.com\/<\/a> it also contains a litany of howlers from his former cabinet cronies, including the current PM.<\/p>\n

You might think that the Scottish government would use the opportunity of the Tories lagging in the polls to make some headway with whatever their current policies are, but they\u2019ve been quiet of late, apart from Humza sticking his head above the parapet over the current Gaza conflict \u2013 which involved his in-laws, who are thankfully safe now.<\/p>\n

If the Scotgov had any sense they would be working hard to mitigate the legislation the Tory government is tailoring to fit its \u201cimmigration bad\u201d narrative, despite the fact that public services \u2013 including the NHS \u2013 are collapsing because of it.<\/p>\n

I have witnessed the strife and heartache migrants have to endure to get into this country, even when their families ae already here, and it\u2019s far from pleasant.<\/p>\n

On one particular occasion (on a Saturday) the Home Office accused me of getting a front-page story completely wrong, which led to a couple of hours of arguments and shouting only for them to back down and admit they were wrong \u2013 and had in fact lied in their response to me.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve sat in on government briefings with some loathsome individuals, such as Michael Gove, and come away wondering how they got where they are.<\/p>\n

Yet still we are governed by them?<\/p>\n

Methinks it\u2019s long past time to get out of this unequal, undemocratic union.<\/p>\n

Pip pip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LIFE can be strange sometimes \u2013 wouldn\u2019t you agree? There\u2019s a lot been happening in my own lately, but I\u2019ll keep that for another time. Being out of the frontline media world for a time doesn\u2019t mean I haven\u2019t been watching what\u2019s been going on around me, especially in the increasingly fractious world of politics. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregrussell.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/0DC622D7-5520-451C-A1D3-B40A75EFD0BB_1_105_c.jpeg?fit=768%2C1024&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}