We Asked UK Cabinet Ministers Seven Questions
In polls, the topics most concerning the electorate of the UK have been as follows: climate change, Government spending, Downing Street parties, and racism. So, we curated seven questions that we felt covered the bases of these topics. Then, in an attempt to have some questions answered by members of the Cabinet Office, we emailed all those with press emails. Here are their responses.
The media departments of Nadine Dorries, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and MP for Mid Bedfordshire; Grant Shapps, Secretary of State for Transport and MP for Welwyn Hatfield; Thérèse Coffey, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and MP for Suffolk Coastal; George Eustice, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and MP for Camborne and Redruth; and Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer and MP for Richmond (Yorkshire) did not respond to requests for comment.
Liz Truss, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs and MP for South West Norfolk declined to comment. However, despite initial interest, the news desk stopped replying following the requested description of the questions already attached to the email.
Steve Barclay, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Downing Street Chief of Staff and MP for North East Cambridgeshire, previously Minister for the Cabinet Office (at time of asking questions), declined to comment. However, his Press Officer directed our questions on COP26 and governmental environmental policy to the media team for the COP President.
Alok Sharma, COP President and MP for Reading West, declined to comment. We had previously emailed the Cabinet Office hoping for a response to all of our questions but received no reply. Therefore, when we followed the direction of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster’s press officer, we specified that we would like him to answer all of the questions but were most interested in his answers to Questions 1 and 2 on COP26 and governmental environmental policy. Sharma’s media team directed us to send Questions 1 and 2 to BEIS.
Kwasi Kwarteng, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and MP for Spelthorne, declined to comment. Under the direction of the COP President’s press officer, we emailed BEIS all of the questions, stating we were most interested in his answers to Questions 1 and 2. Kwarteng’s press officer asked us which other Government departments we’d approached and what the article’s “top line” would be. After we replied, they did not.
After this ‘interesting’ experience with the many government media teams and press officers, let us get to the questions they were so off-put by.
Question 1: From the 31st of October to the 12th of November 2021, #COP26 was hosted in Glasgow. Boris Johnson, the current Prime Minister, attended. On the 21st of January 2022, the Government green-lit Ithaca Energy, allowing them to drill for oil in the North Sea. How can you justify this decision, having boasted that Britain will “lead the world” on climate action?
This Author believes that this is the same type of boasting that has caused the Prime Minister to ‘mislead’ the House of Commons multiple times over crime figures, GDP, local funding and tax hikes. In fact, this Author believes that the only thing that is genuinely world-beating about the conduct of the Prime Minister and his Government is the volume of his lies — and that’s only because Trump wasn’t re-elected.
Question 2: The Government is being sued over its net-zero climate strategy, which lawyers are arguing illegally fails to include the policies needed to deliver promised cuts to emissions. You claim to want to ‘Build Back Greener’, but have suggested no policies in order to do so. Can you, now, explain a policy that the Government is implementing, this year (2022), to enact an end to climate change?
This Author finds that they have none. Indeed, the illegal invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin’s forces has revealed the reluctance of the Government to move to renewable energy, seeking any route they can to continue our dependence on fossil fuels and non-renewable energy.
Question 3: Liz Truss, MP for South West Norfolk, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, and Minister for Women and Equalities spent £500,000 of taxpayers’ money, using the Government’s private plane. The Foreign Secretary has previously been criticised for spending £3,000 of taxpayers’ money on a lunch at a private members’ club, which she insisted upon, overruling civil servants’ concerns. Can Liz Truss’s actions be taken by the public as indicative of Conservative attitudes towards taxpayers’ money?
Yes. The Government are supposedly incapable of increasing aid to the people struggling from energy price increases across the UK but can increase their annual pay by £2,000.
Question 4: Over the past five years, Government departments have spent at least £500,000 attempting to prevent the release of information under the Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation. This was revealed in September of last year. Is this indicative of the Conservative Party’s misuse of public funds, in a way that illegally breaches Resolution 59 of the UN General Assembly (1946), as well as Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), which expresses that freedom of information is an integral part of the freedom of expression?
Yes. Yet another example of governmental inability to care for the human rights of their people.
Question 5: It has been revealed that over a period of 11 months, No 10 Downing Street held sixteen parties while the rest of the country was in lockdown. Can you justify these decisions, and if so, do you admit that it looks like one rule for us and no rules for you?
Since we asked these questions, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Minister of State for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency, has described it as “fundamentally trivial” and “fluff”. However, as MP for the Rhondda, Chris Bryant pointed out:
The Author would also challenge anyone from the Government, especially Rees-Mogg to tell the thousands of people who lost family members during the same period that could not see them because of lockdown rules that it is “fundamentally trivial”. But, then again, coming from the man who said that victims of Grenfell lacked common sense, this should be unsurprising.
Question 6: The statement that Boris Johnson did all he could in his capacity as leader of the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic has been repeated for the past year. It has been argued that, as it is an “unprecedented” event, he could have done no better. However, other world leaders have. New Zealand has had a total of 52 deaths from Coronavirus, and, as of asking this question, the United Kingdom has had over 155,000. Is there any reason why Boris Johnson could not have done better?
No. This Author can find no reason.
Question 7: Whilst questioned about his past racist comments during a session of PMQs, Boris Johnson said that his comments describing African people as “flag waving piccaninnies with watermelon smiles” were taken out of context. Can the Cabinet clarify what the Prime Minister would class as the correct context for the racist comments?
It seems they cannot. They will, however, defend him until they are blue in the face.
Therefore, this Author concludes that the Cabinet did not answer the questions we set to them because they have no answers. They have no answers because they, like their leader, are fundamentally unacquainted with the truth. This begs the question: why does the country continue to vote for them?
