What might be included in Boris Johnson' 'bold new agenda' for the UK Parliament?

A local Green Party colleague sent me pdf [Portable Document Format] e-copy of what Boris Johnson had written MPs today toward suspending UK Parliament.

Boris Johnson's 'Dear Colleague[s, I'm suspending Parliament] letter, p1

Boris Johnson's 'Dear Colleague[s, I'm suspending Parliament] letter, p2

My colleague noted,

see attached for his dreadful letter, which unsurprisingly fails to mention climate change, inequality and child poverty  in his list of what needs to be done (add your own 'burning injustice)

 I responded:

I don't generally get around to read BoJo's literary output, and now I feel more justified in that omission.
Re Bojo's "bold new agenda," I guess that with Gove as Brexit Secretary, Gove's back story as Education Secretary

https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2013/11/12/gove-slams-social-work-education/#.UoNAveIqvKc

and as Justice Secretary

https://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.com/2017/07/did-tory-war-on-poor-weed-out-magistrates-opposed-to-push-button-mass-destruction-in-the-name-of-debt-recovery.html

gives us a foretaste of how being more Trump-trade deal friendly might fit in with such a 'bold agenda'.

Beyond that, I append text from my reply to someone's rather misinformed reference to Blair's welfare reforms being worse than his Tory predecessors got up to.

Best Wishes

Alan

[Someone wrote]

----extract starts----

i know the torys have taken things to extremes but it was labour that started the welfare reforms and a lot of the people are still there in the background

----extract ends----

"The people still there in the background" include senior Civil Servants, ex-Civil Servants, and a continuum of Government ministers and opposition spokespersons, as can be deduced from this article outlining the research of a medically retired RAF veteran, Mo Stewart.

Disabled researcher’s book exposes ‘corporate demolition of welfare state’

Disabled researcher’s book exposes ‘corporate demolition of welfare state’ A string of activists, academics, politicians and journalists have welcomed the publication of a new book by a d...

Eg,

----extract starts----

Disabled researcher’s book exposes ‘corporate demolition of welfare state’

By John Pring

John Pring the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

on 15th September 2016

A string of activists, academics, politicians and journalists have welcomed the publication of a new book by a disabled researcher which exposes how successive governments have planned the “demolition of the welfare state”.

Mo Stewart has spent eight years researching the influence of the US insurance giant Unum over successive UK governments, and how it led to the introduction of the “totally bogus” work capability assessment (WCA), which she says was designed to make it harder for sick and disabled people to claim out-of-work disability benefits.

Stewart’s book, Cash Not Care: The Planned Demolition Of The UK Welfare State, published this week, argues that the assessment was modelled on methods used by Unum to deny protection to sick and disabled people in the US who had taken out income protection policies.

She says in her book that the WCA was “designed to remove as many as possible from access to [employment and support allowance] on route to the demolition of the welfare state”, with out-of-work disability benefits eventually to be replaced by insurance policies provided by companies like Unum.

She warns that the UK is now close to adopting that kind of US-style model.

Stewart is a former healthcare professional and a female veteran and self-funded her six years of research, which has been repeatedly referenced in parliamentary debates, and has been highlighted by Disability News Service (DNS) for nearly five years.

She describes in her book how Peter Lilley, secretary of state for social security in John Major’s Conservative government, hired senior Unum executive John LoCascio to advise the UK government on how to cut the number of claimants of long-term sickness benefits.....

----extract ends----

Further on there having been a continuum of Tory and Labour politicians involved in the corporate demolition of the welfare state, the changed 'descriptors' for disability benefit assessment tests that the Tories piloted in 2011 had actually been signed off by Yvette Cooper as DWP Secretary in April 2010, as this article shows:

Even harsher new ESA Medical approved''(warning very bad news inc)

Even harsher new ESA Medical approved''(warning very bad news inc) Even Harsher New ESA Medical Approved Tens of thousands of claimants facing losing their benefit on review, or o...

Yvette Cooper is the kind of Labour MP who would come more to the fore again if Labour right wing MPs managed to oust Jeremy Corbyn as that Party's Leader.

UK's minority government PM attempts to suspend Parliament. Avaaz petition site responds

From Mike Baillie of Avaaz

Dear friends,

It's a Brexit coup.

28 Aug at 12:19

It's a Brexit coup! Boris is suspending parliament so he can ram through his catastrophic No-Deal Brexit. We can't let it happen! Let's make this biggest, loudest call to protect our democracy and give MPs all the firepower they need to block the Brexit coup!  SIGN NOW!

Boris just announced he's SUSPENDING parliament, right as MPs agreed a plan to save Britain from a catastrophic no-deal Brexit.

It's an extreme, all-out assault on our democracy -- and we can't let it happen.

We have to respond right now with a GIANT public backlash, calling on MPs to do everything in their power to stop Boris and save our democracy. Sign urgently and pass it on:

MPs: Block the Coup!

This is our democracy being butchered for Brexit.

It's parliament's duty to oversee something as fundamental as Brexit -- and yet now it could be shut down precisely to prevent MPs from playing that role. Shut down by a government that was never elected, has no mandate, and all for a break-neck Brexit that people never voted for.

We have to be fast.

Let's give MPs all the firepower they need to stop Boris. Legislation, legal routes, even toppling the government -- whatever it takes to stop this ruthless attack on the heart of our country. Sign now and tell everyone! 

MPs: Block the Coup!

Avaaz was built for moments like this: those gaps in history when the voices of passionate, caring people roar in the face of unjust power. We are the very expression of democracy, and now it's under attack right under our noses -- and so we rise, louder and stronger than ever!

With endless hope and determination,

Mike, Nick, Sarah, Bert, Alaphia and the whole team at Avaaz


More information:

Government asks Queen to suspend Parliament (BBC)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49493632

Boris Johnson asks Queen to suspend parliament as John Bercow calls it a 'constitutional outrage' (The Telegraph)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/08/28/brexit-latest-news-boris-johnson-no-deal/


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