Number 10 is doubling down on the decision to activate its emergency alert system across millions of Brits’ phones on Friday evening. The PM’s spokesman insisted today that the threat of wildfires was an “emergency situation“, and “it was an entirely appropriate use of the system”. Those confused by their phone’s screams on a quiet Friday evening, as if nuclear armageddon was just minutes away, might disagree.
First Secretary of State Louise Haigh is said to have made the decision, with No10 today only claiming the call was made “at Cobra” on the insistence of fire chiefs. When it was pointed out that the chairman of the board of trustees of the National Fire Chiefs Council said it was a bad idea, the spokesman said they “hadn’t seen those comments”. The spokesman also said the alert has been triggered several times before in recent years. No one in the building appears to have read the The Boy Who Cried Wolf…
Robert Jenrick on the Today programme:
“Can you now give a guarantee to your listeners this morning that no BBC presenter in the future will be exposed as a paedophile, as a number have been in the recent past? No, of course you can’t…”