Tag Archives: london riots

NewsHound

Lynne Featherstone reflects on being left to handle the London riots

By NewsHound | Sun 29th August 2021 - 6:37 pm

We’ve been thinking a lot about when ministers should and shouldn’t return from holiday recently, and the consequences of their decisions.

But the tragic and appalling events in Afghanistan weren’t the first time senior ministers have been away when something big has kicked off and their junior ministers have had to deal with it.

Today Lynne Featherstone tells My London about her experience 10 years ago when the Tottenham Riots broke out. Boris Johnson, then Mayor of London, was off sunning himself somewhere and didn’t come back, David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Theresa May were all away, so, for a brief time, Lynne was the face of the Government response to the riots.

I was the ‘duty minister’ that weekend for the Home Office. But this was such a big story, I expected to see the Prime Minister or the Home Secretary,”

She called Nick Timothy, who, with Fiona Hall was May’s extremely unpopular adviser when she was PM and was then at the Home Office. He told her to come in as she was “the only one in the room.”

Lynne assumed that someone more senior would be around:

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged | 14 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Tim
    300 MPs is not enough if ministers will mainly be MPs as now...
  • Peter Davies
    We should start by asking "What powers should the state (at any level) be exercising and at what level can they be taken democratically by a body covering all t...
  • Steve Trevethan
    Might it be that “citizen awareness” does not require much money, if any at all? If/when the leader of the L Ds anòunced that we do not have a pure/genu...
  • Chloe
    Thankfully MPs have rejected Kim Leadbeaters awful bill. No amount of sending opponents on some guilt ridden trips with emotive stories can change the fact it w...
  • James Dennison
    Thanks David. I certainly didn't mean to imply that the UK begins and ends with England — rather, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland already have substantia...