Jacob Rees-Mogg out of order over ‘partygate’ claim and dismissing all this Tory sleaze as ‘fluff’ – Yorkshire Post Letters

SEEMINGLY, Jacob Rees-Mogg considers Boris Johnson’s blatant lies about ‘Partygate’, with one rule for us, another for everyone else, as merely ‘trivia’ and ‘fluff’.

No doubt he thinks the same about the following:

Boris Johnson’s refusal to sack Dominic Cummings over his ‘eye test’ in Barnard Castle;

Sheffield Council secrecy over suspended ‘partygate’ CEO Kate Josephs is shameful and insults taxpayers paying her £190,000 salary – Tom Richmond

Robert Jenrick, the Housing Minister, fast-tracking a planning permission to benefit a Tory donor £45m, before having to admit it was unlawful;

PPE contracts worth £1.7bn being fast-tracked without competitive tendering via a ‘VIP lane’ after recommendations from Tory MPs, ministers and peers – for their mates. A judge has since said this was unlawful;

‘Levelling-up’ cash going not to the most deprived areas but to Ministers’ constituencies such as Robert Jenrick’s and Rishi Sunak’s;

Priti Patel being found guilty by the independent adviser of breaking the ministerial code by bullying civil servants. Boris Johnson supported her and the adviser resigned rather than 
Priti Patel. The civil servant forced out of his job by bullying was paid £370,000 in compensation;

Tory MP Owen Paterson breaking the rules by lobbying for the company paying him money, and Boris Johnson deciding that the rules should be ripped up to let his ‘honourable’ friend off;

Tory MP Sir Geoffrey Cox earning more than £1m above his £82,000 MP’s salary working for the Virgin Islands government which was accused of corruption by the UK Foreign Office;

Boris Johnson pushing ahead with the nomination of Evgeny Lebedev for a peerage despite MI5 and MI6 considering that there was a threat to national security. The Tory Party receiving £1.93m of Russian money since Boris Johnson became Prime Minister.

No, Mr Rees-Mogg, this is not ‘trivia’ and ‘fluff’, let’s call it out for what it really is: sleaze and corruption.

From: Susan Abbott, Wakefield.

HAVING read Tom Richmond’s column (The Yorkshire Post, March 19) on the brave and compassionate train driver in the Ukraine reminded me of about 30 years ago when my late German grandad (Opa) aged 92 was visiting us his family here in England.

He got to Düsseldorf Airport check-in to be told that his passport had expired. Was he turned away? No. The authorities just stamped his passport and he was allowed to come. I think he was flying with Lufthansa.

Would he have been allowed to come had this been in England, I wonder. The captain on the plane announced that he had the ‘oldest passenger’ on board who had flown with him and a goody bag was put together for him. I shall be always remember the kindness and compassion shown to him. Our family had a wonderful couple of weeks with our amazing grandad. It was the last time we saw him.

From: Andrew Crabtree, Hellifield.

I DON’T normally take exception to ‘Letters to the Editor’, whichever end of the political spectrum they come from, but that from Nick Martinek (The Yorkshire Post, March 19), extolling the virtues of nationalism, surely takes the biscuit in terms of jaundiced views capitalising on the pain of the people of Ukraine.

To suggest that the chief cause of the two most catastrophic conflicts of the 20th century, and what could yet prove to be the same for the 21st century, is the solution to the current conflict, is bizarre, to say the least.

So I say to Mr Martinek, you don’t need to try to score cheap points against the 49 per cent of the British public that expressed the wish to stay in the EU, that’s a battle that was decided in 2016.

From: Ken Cooke, Ilkley.

THE Prime Minister’s assertion at the Tory party conference that Ukraine’s fight for freedom from President Putin’s dictatorship is comparable with the UK voluntarily seceding from the democratically managed EU is simply insane. This government is desperate to show that Brexit has benefits, which it plainly does not. All they demonstrate is incompetence merging with insanity.

From: Ray Marshall, Holmdene Drive, Mirfield.

A SUPER as usual column by Christa Ackroyd (The Yorkshire Post, March 19) and this is going on as Putin parades with thousands in a football stadium. When will the fighting end?

Please, Christa, let us know the outcome of your story, and thanks again for bringing the human side of this mad war.

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