Guido’s already covered Councillor Sheila Oakes’s suspension by the Labour Party after her remarks that the PM “deserves this” following his admission to intensive care. Given Oakes was elected, however, she remains in post – albeit without the Labour whip. There has now finally been a concrete repercussion for Sheila in the form of being sacked from her paralegal job by employer VHS Fletchers Solicitors.
A statement put out by the firm says:
“As you may be aware, on Monday evening Sheila Oakes, a paralegal at our Ilkeston office and also Mayor of Heanor posted deeply offensive remarks relating to the Prime Minister’s current state of health on Facebook
[…]
We can confirm that as of now Ms Oakes is no longer employed by this firm in any capacity. We have no knowledge of what her intentions are in relation to her political career.
We have previously stressed that her views are not shared by the partners or any other members of staff. To wish illness upon anyone must be abhorrent to all right thinking members of the public.”
Oakes’s retribution doesn’t end there, with a Change.org petition to get her sacked as town mayor surpassing 6,300 signatures.
A number approaching 40% the population of her town…
In further evidence that the real world does not behave like Twitter, some of those who yesterday celebrated the worsening of the Prime Minister’s condition, have today received some cosmic justice. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction…
To the Labour Party’s credit it was swift in booting out Mayor Sheila Oakes, who is now suspended from the party pending full investigation after writing Boris Johnson “completely deserves this”. Her name has also been taken off the website of the firm of solicitors she works for…
Exeter Socialist Students have been in touch with Guido to distance themselves from member Steven, who tweeted that the Prime Minister being rushed to ICU is “very good and funny actually”. Guido is happy to report Steven “is not on committee anymore”.
As for Siobhan Thompson, a writer on the popular cartoon Rick and Morty, the incident prompted her locking her Twitter account and an edit war on her Wikipedia page. Eighteen separate edits yesterday resulted in the consensus that a new section detailing the controversy should be added, and a notice questioning her notability being added.
“In April 2020, Siobhan Thompson posted on Twitter in reference to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson being in intensive care with COVID-19, “The c*** deserves every blunt needle he’ll get”[7][8][9]. As a result of the controversy Siobhan locked the Twitter account due to the backlash.”
This now takes up one quarter of the word count on her page…
Riz Mokal on the other hand, who tweeted “You have to have a heart of stone not to smile just a little bit” in response to the news of Boris being swept to an Intensive Care Unit, has only locked his Twitter account. The barrister is senior Counsel to a World Bank initiative and on leave from being a Professor of Law and Legal Theory at the UCL, where he teaches jurisprudence plus political and legal philosophy. So far Mokal’s Wikipedia page is unblemished by any mention of his schadenfreude towards Boris…
