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Don't think there is any ambiguity that Cllr Hearn's original reply was intended for me. I'll interpret the rather personal nature of it as an indication that he has been forced to consider an unpleasant fact - that the government that he supports are indeed more prone to lying than any previous administration that we have had. This isn't really something that can be seriously disputed. Boris Johnson has lied consistently through his career made a series of statements which he knew to be completely false when he made them. This is something attested to by his own party colleagues. His biggest lie this year is that the deal with the EU delivered frictionless trade which has been showed to be a falsehood within days of him making it.Over the last few decades governments including those of Major, Blair and Cameron have come to see spin as a virtue. In doing so they have often presented a version of truth which is subject to dispute but they rarely, if ever, made statements that they knew to be completely false. This has changed.This current government, described by their own civil servants as 'truth twisters' is different as the standard has been set from the top.It is therefore impossible to rule out that in the distribution of the vaccine as in any other area of policy that they are not telling us the truth when they say political considerations are not at play.We see at a local level that they are quite prepared to leverage policy for political advantage for instance with their refusal to fund repairs for Hammersmith Bridge before the mayoral election. This truth twisting also has a direct impact on Councillor Hearn because he has to pretend that the road barrier near his house is a result only of council policy and not one that has been dictated to Hounslow by the Prime Minister's friend Andrew Gilligan. As I said in my original post, it is unlikely to be ever proved that the allocation of vaccines across the nation was driven by party political considerations. However, I fail to see how any rational person could rule out the possibility that this is something the government might do. I suggest the tone of Cllr Hearn's response was, in part, driven by the uncomfortable realisation that this might be the case.

Francis Rowe ● 1165d