Professor Phil Scraton on Boris Johnson – “My concern is that despite their catastrophic failures they will get away with it…”

Professor Phil Scraton recently appeared on A Celtic State of Mind to discuss the 31-year fight for justice of the Hillsborough victims’ families. Many will have read Professor Scraton’s criticisms of Boris Johnson in the pages of his seminal book, Hillsborough: The Truth. He also wrote a critical piece for the Institute of Race Relations: BORIS JOHNSON: LIVERPOOL, LIES AND BIGOTRY.

Professor Scraton has continued to commentate on the shambolic performance of Boris Johnson during the devastating coronavirus pandemic, and his recent comments are captured here:

8th May:
I vowed never again to be involved in State-commissioned research having been commissioned by the UK Government in the 1990s to conduct research into deaths in contested circumstances. It focused on official responses to several mass tragedies and was critical of State agencies, their lack of informed and appropriate responses. Well received to our face the Report and its recommendations were shelved and, because it was Government-funded research, we had lost the copyright and could not publish. I did – in other publications. But this is of a different magnitude – censoring informed analysis at a time of national crisis is reckless beyond imagination:

LINK: Report criticising government lockdown proposals heavily redacted before release

10 May:
Isolationism in thought and deed … and no amount of socially distanced street parties or fly-pasts or street clapping will replace the mendacity of Johnson, his political chums and the scientific ‘advisors’ who failed to listen to epidemiologists outside a ‘tent’. A tent erected by Johnson and his advisory team reflecting their political isolationism and narcissistic arrogance. My concern is that despite their catastrophic failures they will get away with it …

LINK: While there is sympathy for Britain’s health workers, there is disbelief that Prime Minister Boris Johnson squandered vital weeks

10 May:
I was trying to find the words to describe the appalling debacle that was tonight’s latest Johnson shitshow when I discovered John Crace had beaten me to it. At every level – appalling presentation, dreadful tone, no content and, worst of all, a callous disregard for the truth – Johnson demonstrated that he is unfit for office. Having surrounded himself with third rate political cronies, academic ideologues/ ‘scientific’ advisors and noses-in-the-trough news reporters he is under the illusion that his bluff and bombast absolves him of all responsibility for the pain, suffering and death endured in the communities for whom he has responsibility:

LINK: Boris Johnson’s vague coronavirus address divides nations and spreads confusion