HANCOCK OUT, JAVID IN

So Matt Hancock has gone, and rightly so. Now every opposition voice, including that of the equally discredited Dominic Cummings, is complaining that he shouldn't have been allowed to resign but should have been sacked and Boris Johnson is being accused of being weak.

None of this should really be any surprise. The Labour Party, effectively leaderless and with no identifiable policies other than of opposing the nasty Tories, uses every opportunity to throw mud at the Prime Minister while the Liberals and Scottish Nationalists make every effort to twist any negative story in a direction that supports their own agenda.

Hancock may have been a fool and may have been incompetent; he may even have been bordering on corrupt but the only firm evidence against him were the pictures leaked to the Sun newspaper. Yes, he has been embroiled in a variety of apparently dodgy dealings but who in the political sphere hasn't ? On the positive side, as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care he has presided over the most extraordinary period in our nation's history and has overseen an astonishingly successful vaccination programme. He certainly had to go but let's not forget that his legacy isn't entirely a bad one.

Replacing Hancock is the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, as well as previous occupant of numerous other senior government jobs, Sajid Javid. His appointment has been welcomed by his fellow MPs although Cummings, who it seems was instrumental in getting him sacked from No 11, has posted a vitriolic diatribe against him. It seems that once this self-proclaimed genius has got his knives out, he carries on sticking them in whenever he can. He seems oblivious to the simple fact that such behaviour reduces his credibility to vanishing point.

And so we go on. COVID-19 cases are continuing to rise although hospitalisations and deaths remain low. July 19th is only 3 weeks away and Sajid Javid has the chance to be a hero by releasing us all from what has seemed like interminable misery. Let's hope he takes it.

BEGUM'S BABY MAKES NO DIFFERENCE.

Now that Shamima Begum's baby has died, the usual suspect are up in arms and demanding the Home Secretary's head. Shame on them.

Of course it's sad that the baby died but the responsibility rests solely on its parents, who decided to desert their Western home countries to join up with a fanatical terrorist organisation dedicated to destroying the Western and its culture. It was only when things went wrong that Begum and her husband discovered that they wanted to return 'home', back to the countries they'd forsaken and effectively betrayed. Without showing any remorse for her actions, Begum wanted to take advantage of the UK's health service, something which was missing in her chosen life. Well, life isn't like that; as the EU's negotiators have repeated over and again, you can't 'cherry pick'

When Begum chose to pursue a life with the terrorists of ISIL, she chose all that went with that life. That her baby has died, joining the 2 others which she says also died, is her fault, her husband's fault and the fault of the organisation which they chose to join, with its twisted logic and medieval, barbaric philosophy. Home Secretary Sajid Javid was absolutely right to deny this woman a return to the UK and the death of the child makes no difference. 

There are times when politicians actually do have to take a stand and, on this rare occasion, Javid took a stand and git it right. Those now criticising him are doing so simply for their own vested interests and political ends.