Seems to be multiple parties during multiple lockdowns, during December 2020, and May 2020 too, weeks after Johnson was supposed to be infected with Covid (*). Even the extreme right wing magazine, the Spectator which Johnson himself has edited, is coming out against him
It appears that ITN is doing the job of real journalism in the UK. The BBC has been neutered with Tory donors as Richard Sharp in charge, and the BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg having turned down a job as advisor to Boris Johnson in the past.
(*) There has recently been some revelations that Johnson was actually admitted in April 2020 for illnesses related to alcohol and perhaps drugs. His recovery and treatment versus his health doesn’t match a serious Covid infection, and the nurses who treated them seem to have gone to ground and some refused to sign the official secrets act. It’s all very strange. Personally, I’d not believe the man if he told me the sun was going to rise, and had doubts at the time. I guess the truth of this might eventually make it out, even if it was all for show, and the infection real and mild.
He is losing a lot of credibility within his own party for this kind of mismanagement. But they won’t turn on him until it becomes clear that the public have also lost confidence. The next general election is still a long way of. This issue is not important enough that it brings people out onto the streets to protest.
However, when people begin to see the increased taxes and bills to pay because of Covid screw up. Then scandals about which companies won all the big profitable contracts because of their connections with the Conservative party. That kind of corruption scandal couid be much more serious.
If Johnson can’t handle this fairly minor hypocrisy scandal. It suggests he is ill prepared for something bigger. I am sure the many rival candidates have lots of mud ready to throw, when they think the time is right. I think most are holding off until the Covid emergency subsides.
Prime Ministers hold things together by having a network of ‘advisors’, media manipulators and party, ‘whips’ to give early warning of opposition to their political program. Normally this sort of scandal would have been nipped in the bud quite early. It is a sign that he is not quite in control. There must be a lot of heads shaking in disbelief in the tea rooms of Westminster.
Johnson’s saving grace is that there’s nobody else in the Conservative Party that is any more appealing to the public. At the moment Sunak is probably the least reviled, but that’s a pretty low bar to clear in a party that includes Gove, Hancock and Rees-Mogg.
Brexit obviously is not something that matters or is much understood outside the Conservative party. I cannot see Brexit voters rejoicing about winning non-EU trade deals. And the many loose ends will make it clear he did not get Brexit done.
His handling of the Covid pandemic will eventually come under scrutiny once it is under control, especially when the final bill becomes clear.
There is the Environment Policy… siezing the centre ground. But there is looming energy crisis and alarm at the huge fuel price rises about to hit.
The Social care policy, but that is quite barebones.
There is an Immigration Bill about to go through. But copying Australia in being nasty to refugees and putting the Home Office in charge of deciding who is the ‘brightest and best’ and excluding all those lower class jobs that require cheap labour. That is not going to end well.
Johnson really does not have any ideals or a vision for the country. He won votes because he offered a solution to the vexatious Brexit issue, which was largely a product of division within the Conservative party that they were unable to resolve.
He is a single issue politician. That issue is now swept under the carpet. He has not shown any signs of inspired leadership in the face of a national Covid crisis. He did not take it seriously enough early on. And when the government became desperate for PPE and a Test and Trace system, they allowed all their dodgy friends to make off with billions of taxpayers money.
He will join Cameron and May as lacklustre Conservative PMs who lacked judgement and failed when they were required to lead not just their fractious party, but the UK as a nation.
There is a sad lack of statesmen or statewomen in UK politics at the moment. They are all party hacks.
If Boris loses his job because of telling stupid lies,it will not come as a surprise.
It’s been going around twitter for a few weeks. Recent additions have been about the nurses refusing to sign things. However, tracking who said what is difficult.
Seems as if full fact have got it and it’s based on a satire article. Sometimes you grow to hate someone so much, you wish it to be true. I still think the treatment and time doesn’t match any real covid infections of the time, but that’s about as much as I know.
Boris runs out of road 'We’re f*ed unless he apologises’: Tories’ stark warning to Boris as he prepares to make partygate statement TODAY after being given a ‘20% chance of survival’ by Dominic Cummings allies
New allegations are coming out that staff members were told to “clean up” their phones to remove evidence that there had been a party. It’s anonymous sources so appropriate caveats apply, but it’s certainly consistent with what we do know.
Of course they were. This government has been caught deleting messages ahead of inquiries more than once, a culture that goes all the way back to Cumming’s wizard wheeze of using only his personal email for Department of Education work, but also includes Boris’s own messages wheedling cash for flat redecoration from donors.
Prime Minister’s Questions was pretty brutal. Johnson was asked to resign at least a dozen times, called a liar several times, and a disgrace a few times. The look on his face and his body language showed he absolutely did not want to be there. The best question, in my opinion was the one that noted he had been fired from two other jobs for lying, and asked if he felt that the office of the Prime Minister should be held to a lower standard than those other two jobs. Still, I feel that Labour could have done better. Keir Starmer was expected to hammer Johnson and call on him to resign, which he did, so that was mission accomplished. Johnson was expected to hide behind the inquiry into the parties and if rules were broken, and that’s what Johnson did. But Labour didn’t take the occasion to ask him hard questions about the inquiry. They should have asked whether the i inquiry would address if Johnson had lied to Parliament, if Johnson planned to fully accept the results of the inquiry, and if Johnson would support the inquiry being turned over to the police as a basis for a criminal investigation. Instead, they just kept coming with the same comments about people not being able to see dying relatives, the same insults, and the same calls for resignation. They were more interested in bashing Johnson than holding him to account. Bit of a missed opportunity.