Quote from Terry Pratchett’s The Truth

Opinion piece by Fiona Grahame

Whilst the minority Government of Theresa May has embroiled the UK into a confrontation with Putin’s Russia and filled the media with threats and counter threats let’s see what else has been happening in the UK.

Changes to Universal Credit means that families earning over £7,500, excluding benefits, will no longer be entitled in the future to free school meals in England. Labour tried to get this overturned but the UK Government succeeded in getting this through. Scottish Tory MPs  even voted in this despite the fact that due to EVEL they cannot vote in English only items. It takes a special kind of person to go out of their way to deprive 1.1 million children of their right to a free school meal in England when you are a Scottish MP especially when you know your vote doesn’t really count but you can still show where your cold heart lies by trooping through on the Government’s side.

At the time of writing this young mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is still incarcerated in an Iranian Jail where her health is deteriorating. It was last November that the UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnston when appearing before a parliamentary committee said erroneously that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been in Iran teaching journalism. A statement that has been disastrous for her. Boris Johnston has failed to secure her release.

By Natalie Oxford via Wikimedia Commons

Grenfell: In a statement to the House of Commons on Thursday 15th March Sajid Javid, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government in the UK Government revealed that the front doors to the flats (glazed fire doors) failed after 15 minutes of a test. The doors were ‘expected’ to have resisted fire for 30 minutes.

It was on the 14th of June 2017 when 71 people died as a result of the inferno including baby Logan Gomes who was stillborn in the hospital.

Yemen: Theresa May welcomed to the UK crown prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. UK armaments sold to Saudi Arabia have been used to bomb the people of Yemen.  It has brought in £4.6 billion to the UK in Arms sales since 2015. The bombardment of Yemen is aiming  to be the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

And let us not forget Saudi Arabia’s record at home:

Amnesty International (Richard Potts)

“Torture and other ill-treatment of detainees remained common and widespread. Courts continued to convict people and uphold death sentences on the basis of contested pre-trial “confessions”. Security officials continued to torture and otherwise ill-treat detainees with complete impunity.

“In July, the families of 14 men sentenced to death for protest-related charges learned by telephone that their relatives’ sentences had been upheld. Court documents showed that the 14 men were subjected to prolonged pre-trial detention and that they reported having been tortured and ill-treated during interrogation in order to extract “confessions” from them. In sentencing, the SCC appeared to have relied mostly on the “confessions” for evidence against the men and failed to investigate their allegations of torture.” Amnesty Report

Just a taster of a few of the things the UK Government has been involved in over the last few days when they have not been working up a frenzy against Russia.

And I didn’t even mention the looming constitutional and economic crisis brought about by their utter incompetence to handle Brexit.

“A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on.”  Terry Pratchett, The Truth