Rishi Sunak must wind up Covid probe before it wastes half a BILLION pounds on anti-Boris witch hunt
IT takes a special sort of kangaroo court, led by a hanging judge and an attack dog prosecutor, to turn a condemned man into something like a martyr.
Yet this is the bizarre situation as lip-smacking liberal elites prepare to humiliate the man who dared take Britain out of the EU — and win a landslide majority from grateful voters in the process.
Boris Johnson has never been forgiven for his crime against The Blob and its BBC amplifiers.
Now he is in the dock for “letting Covid rip” and slaughtering old folk.
The Covid inquiry, a mock trial likely to cost cash-strapped taxpayers up to £500million, will eventually reach its verdict of guilty.
But while BoJo may be shambolic and indecisive — a “wonky shopping trolley” in his own words — he is innocent on both counts.
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He rightly opposed lockdown, now seen as an avoidable catastrophe which blighted the lives of young and old and wrecked the British economy.
And he had no role in Matt Hancock’s decision to transfer vulnerable patients into care homes where the virus spread like wildfire.
Hancock has since apologised.
The inquiry has shown no interest in these disobliging facts, instead trashing key evidence from anti-lockdown experts such as respected epidemiologist Professor Carl Heneghan.
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Absurdly, Boris has been labelled “callous” for pointing out the age of those most likely to succumb to the virus — above the average life span of 81, most already seriously ill.
“It’s nature’s way of dealing with old people,” he said to confected dismay.
Statisticians who predict population trends use exactly the same terms, describing it as the “pensioner harvest”.
In less sentimental times, pneumonia was known as “the old man’s friend”.
But when millions of children were locked down at home, often with warring mums and dads, Boris was absolutely right to raise these questions.
Instead, his trolley joke was turned against him by Downing Street Svengali Dominic Cummings.
Yet No10 was filled with wonky trolleys — including Cummings himself, an advocate of the disastrous Test and Trace fiasco costing £37billion.
And press chief Lee Cain, who once dressed as a chicken and for a few weeks thought he was running the country.
Failed abjectly
As Covid spread out of China, indecisive Boris was certainly guilty of leadership failures.
Yet the blame for Covid chaos lies with the sainted NHS, now-defunct Public Health England and Cabinet Office mandarins who failed abjectly to do their job and plan ahead.
Panic was fuelled by hysterical SAGE predictions of death and disaster by “Bonking Boffin” Professor Neil Ferguson.
Cabinet minister Michael Gove also went wobbly.
“We will be forced to put the Army on the doors of hospitals to turn the sick away, as the NHS will be overwhelmed,” he warned Downing Street.
“I felt my blood run cold,” said one present.
Mr Gove has since apologised.
“I was wrong,” he told TalkTV’s Julia Hartley-Brewer.
“The Prime Minister was right. I am sorry, on this occasion I made a mistake.”
Mr Gove, some may recall, admitted another mistake when he knifed BoJo in the 2016 leadership race.
Meanwhile, Boris was fighting another assassination plot — barely a year after his election triumph.
Cummings once admitted deciding “within days” of the 2019 election BoJo should be ditched.
Major scandal
Now, thanks to ex-Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, we know the plot had thickened.
Boris received a call from former sex orgy impresario and mystery Tory power broker Dougie Smith.
“If you don’t go, I’m going to take you down,” said Smith. “I’ll finish you off.”
If this account is accurate — and it has yet to be denied — it is unacceptable in a party hoping to win the next election.
Smith has a reputation for playing hardball. “He knows where all the bodies are buried,” one insider tells me.
He is close to squeaky-clean PM Rishi Sunak, best mates with Gove, and is seemingly the most powerful unknown figure in British politics.
Even his Wikipedia entry raises eyebrows.
Rishi needs to take urgent action on two fronts.
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He must sack Dougie Smith from whatever shadowy role he has in Tory high command, before he becomes a major scandal.
And he needs to wind up the Covid probe — or change its terms of reference before it wastes half a billion pounds on a blatantly vindictive anti-Boris witch hunt.
Tent cities
ANYONE who has been to New York or California recently will understand why Suella Braverman wants to abolish tent cities.
These have become public health-and-safety hazards, offering sanctuary to opiate addicts and peddlers, filling sidewalks with syringes, urine and vomit and making life hell for local citizens.
Those who are genuinely homeless deserve help and shelter.
Many who erect these pop-up teepees want neither.
The Home Secretary is right to clear them off the streets before they become a permanent blight on our inner cities.