I wonder why Boris just didn't lay it all out there after the first leak? He must have known Cummings wouldn't stop until he'd destroyed him so he should have just admitted everything right out the outset and apologized for all the parties in one go.
He knows if he told the entire truth he would have to resign as PM.
He is probably already in the zone where each revelation does not cost him, and might even help him as people get bored with it all or start to have sympathy for the "victim".
Spox for Lytle: “Lulu was present in Downing Street on 19 June working on the refurbishment. Lulu was not invited to any birthday celebrations for the prime minister as a guest. Lulu entered the cabinet room briefly as requested, while waiting to speak with the prime minister.” https://twitter.com/hzeffman/status/1485691562055118856
Spox for Lytle: “Lulu was present in Downing Street on 19 June working on the refurbishment. Lulu was not invited to any birthday celebrations for the prime minister as a guest. Lulu entered the cabinet room briefly as requested, while waiting to speak with the prime minister.” https://twitter.com/hzeffman/status/1485691562055118856
Rowena @JustRowena When a seasoned criminal is caught, they know after a certain point additional offences don't add to the sentence and ask for them all to be taken into consideration. Cos it's worse if they come out later in a separate trial.
No idea why that popped into my head.
One effect of this revelation, even though less explosive than some of the previous ones, might be to harden Sue Grey's resolve. If she has been asking whether anything else happened that broke the rules and has been assured not, then this lands, I expect she would feel pretty pissed off.
The government have played a blinder over Sue Gray. The general assumption seems to be that she is an independent investigator with great conscience, investigative experience, powers to get answers and a brief that includes assigning blame.
I'm a natural cynic but not sure any of that is true at all, let alone all of it.
I hope that Sue Gray is able to define just how much the fact Downing Street is a working environment with a private flat and how the interaction between the two causes contradictory aspects to this story, though Boris clearly was very foolish and may yet pay with his job
(Edit: I am available for £3 an hour as the joke has already been made)
I wonder if Carrie arranged for a Russian violinist to burst free from the cake to serenade the birthday boy?
Right, what's all this Russian violinist stuff about? I've seen it referred to a few times and I've no clue.
There are entirely unsubstantiated rumours that I put no stock in that Boris Johnson was friendly with Olga Kholodnaya. Here's a video of her playing in the Moscow underground: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAyvuUZm9uo
So we've now reached the stage that the PM has been interviewed by Sue Gray but Cummings refuses to be.
Frankly, were I in her shoes I'd be pretty pissed by that. It undermines her investigation and puts it at the mercy of his agenda. He's behaving in exactly the same self-entitled twattish way he's accusing others of doing. Who the hell does he think he is?
Rowena @JustRowena When a seasoned criminal is caught, they know after a certain point additional offences don't add to the sentence and ask for them all to be taken into consideration. Cos it's worse if they come out later in a separate trial.
No idea why that popped into my head.
One effect of this revelation, even though less explosive than some of the previous ones, might be to harden Sue Grey's resolve. If she has been asking whether anything else happened that broke the rules and has been assured not, then this lands, I expect she would feel pretty pissed off.
The government have played a blinder over Sue Gray. The general assumption seems to be that she is an independent investigator with great conscience, investigative experience, powers to get answers and a brief that includes assigning blame.
I'm a natural cynic but not sure any of that is true at all, let alone all of it.
I hope that Sue Gray is able to define just how much the fact Downing Street is a working environment with a private flat and how the interaction between the two causes contradictory aspects to this story, though Boris clearly was very foolish and may yet pay with his job
Not foolish. Contemptuous. Of you and the rest of the us.
Amid the continuing gloom here today, there is a rumour that the US is prepared to increase the number of troops on the ground in NATO states by over 50,000 (10x more than the previously discussed number), and that green berets will not be withdrawn from Ukraine. The announcement of withdrawal of embassy staff from Kyiv is being made to show that US/UK is taking the prospect of war seriously and that they will not back down. I dont know, but the serious falls across the board in the Russian markets today is going to add to pressure on Moscow, If the Moscovites do come across the Ukrainian border, I am beginning to wonder whether they may face something they do not expect. I guess its a function of the fear that we all feel here, but we can only pray that the wind is changing.
I believe you live in Tallinn which charmed my wife and I so much when we visited a few years ago
I hope you are assured that the UK is very much with you and active with the US in defending Ukraine sovereignty, as if that is lost then your security becomes very much a cause of concern
All the very best to you and everyone living in the Baltic States
What happens if Starmer goes in hard next PMQs on Covid loans fraud? Forces Boris to back his chancellor (and so stain himself with yet another scandle) or no back his chancellor (political dynamite). If this resignation is really part of a Number 10 plot to discredit Sunak, there's a significant risk of blowback. I wonder how they think they can play this.
As you know I think Boris survives. Comfortably. Survives or is done for - in both instances he takes Sunak down if he can. Do you see what I mean?
But if this shit sticks to Sunak, Boris has to sack him or it sticks to him too. And if he sacks him, it precipitates action Sunak allies. See what I mean? Dangerous game to play, if that's what's happening.
No. 🙂. It’s a Sunak blame game. Boris will be outraged when he learns how Sunak has screwed up. I do understand you arguing it’s slightly dangerous. But it’s not though, if this bit of simple politics is managed effectively
I did tell you all that worse to come but the birthday party isn't even in the top 5 worst ones.
The fact it was the cabinet room does indicate it was work related but the problem with these stories is that everyone believes parties were held and they become less effective in adding to the story
Sue Gray's report is the key and without something that is unequivocally negative I expect Boris to carry on for now
You are absolutely right BIG G - Partygate has run it’s course, adding to the story can not only not harm Boris anymore, but partygate fatigue is now creeping in after the initial angry stage, hence the polls closing up again.
Eagles should know this. 😕. Maybe he is thinking about the money he won’t get back for rejoining the party in lost cause, but he is another still fighting a war that is over.
More seriously now, in Boris transformation from loved to feared, is what happens to the failed rebels - Sunak in particular. If you could guess what they will do to Sunak - hollow him out by pointing out the bad job he has done with tax payers money, then in the relaunch reshuffle offering him foreign Office in straight swap with the well performing Liz, it’s down to Rishi if he accepts that offer or leaves government - if we are second guessing that is what they will do having seen the coup off, then it looks today like they have already started it?
Poor Pork Pie plotters!
And Cummings. They have obviously put the MI5 creeps on him, I can see them jailing him! 😦
Only for some , I would have fatso tarred and feathered and run out of town, along with many of his creepy chums
Obviously he is not going to frighten everybody 🙂. On.y the ones that matter.
(Edit: I am available for £3 an hour as the joke has already been made)
I wonder if Carrie arranged for a Russian violinist to burst free from the cake to serenade the birthday boy?
Right, what's all this Russian violinist stuff about? I've seen it referred to a few times and I've no clue.
There are entirely unsubstantiated rumours that I put no stock in that Boris Johnson was friendly with Olga Kholodnaya. Here's a video of her playing in the Moscow underground: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAyvuUZm9uo
I did tell you all that worse to come but the birthday party isn't even in the top 5 worst ones.
The fact it was the cabinet room does indicate it was work related but the problem with these stories is that everyone believes parties were held and they become less effective in adding to the story
Sue Gray's report is the key and without something that is unequivocally negative I expect Boris to carry on for now
You are absolutely right BIG G - Partygate has run it’s course, adding to the story can not only not harm Boris anymore, but partygate fatigue is now creeping in after the initial angry stage, hence the polls closing up again.
Eagles should know this. 😕. Maybe he is thinking about the money he won’t get back for rejoining the party in lost cause, but he is another still fighting a war that is over.
More seriously now, in Boris transformation from loved to feared, is what happens to the failed rebels - Sunak in particular. If you could guess what they will do to Sunak - hollow him out by pointing out the bad job he has done with tax payers money, then in the relaunch reshuffle offering him foreign Office in straight swap with the well performing Liz, it’s down to Rishi if he accepts that offer or leaves government - if we are second guessing that is what they will do having seen the coup off, then it looks today like they have already started it?
Poor Pork Pie plotters!
And Cummings. They have obviously put the MI5 creeps on him, I can see them jailing him! 😦
Ha ha
The message to the tory MPs is this: Yes, we have more stories, Yes we can release them at times convenient to us, and Yes that includes after you have propped him up for a further year with a VOC, so are you sure you wanna do that
You think Boris has survived the Great War 1914-1917
Ha ha! You still think he’s being ousted?
I’ll say it one more time before dinner. Norman releases something about Parties, there is outrage and you place “out by Q2 bets”. But a couple of days without Norman and the dust settles, it’s blown over.
Boris isn’t done for yet, it’s not his time done yet, too many stick with him on policy and delivery.
Biden calling UVDL, Macron, German and Italy leaders tonight over Russia threat to Ukraine
And for the avoidance of doubt Boris will also be in the call
I expect in the next couple of days Boris to stand at the dispatch box all Churchillian and the the letters will melt away
Is he a lucky general so to speak
Will you melt?
Not me but I do expect this story could have a big influence over conservative mps
Are you actually serious ??
Yes
To the extent that at least some Conservative MPs are working really hard to avoid confronting the issue, War (albeit with Russia, not France or Spain) gives them an excuse for a bit more procrastination.
it shouldn't- see Gulf War I in 1990, but any port in a storm.
But then what? He's still being caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar on lockdown parties. He still has a crazed ferret determined to kill him. Even on this R+W poll, his ratings are grim, before everyone realises that the government has made him poorer.
The Ukraine crisis buys him time, but what can he do with it?
Time will tell
Sky reporting that the cabinet room event was in fact at the end of day and as it was a surprise Boris was unaware of it
No 10 also rejecting the party in the flat that night saying a few family friends within the regulations met outside in the garden
Not Cummings best attempt by the looks of it
Oh for goodness sake BigG. the Queen had to bury her husband alone. Yet Johnson could celebrate his birthday with impunity.
You were one of the posters who wanted Steve Kinnock's nuts when he placed a birthday cake at Neil's door and withdrew 10 metres. But Boris can enjoy a surprise party organised by his GF for ten minutes (yeah, right).
His response should have been " ffs get out of here now. I know it's my birthday, but for the love of God, get the hell out of here...ALL of you! Carrie wtf were you thinking?"
I have no idea about Kinnock and if the rules about family gathering outside were followed then many others would have done the same
To be fair I do not know the rules on family gatherings at the time but I am fairly certain my family could come into our garden
The problem was that Kinnock Jr allegedly travelled many miles to do this, IIRC
Looking back, pretty bloody trivial
At the time the story was that Kinnock Jnr. travelled from Port Talbot. It transpired the family walked from their home in inner London to outside Neil's home in Inner London.
Steve and Neil are nonetheless both a pair of tw*ts if that helps Their hanging offence wasn't a patch on Bozza's birthday escapades.
So we've now reached the stage that the PM has been interviewed by Sue Gray but Cummings refuses to be.
Frankly, were I in her shoes I'd be pretty pissed by that. It undermines her investigation and puts it at the mercy of his agenda. He's behaving in exactly the same self-entitled twattish way he's accusing others of doing. Who the hell does he think he is?
In my opinion, the government have threatened to put him in jail. They have something hanging over him for sure.
Amid the continuing gloom here today, there is a rumour that the US is prepared to increase the number of troops on the ground in NATO states by over 50,000 (10x more than the previously discussed number), and that green berets will not be withdrawn from Ukraine. The announcement of withdrawal of embassy staff from Kyiv is being made to show that US/UK is taking the prospect of war seriously and that they will not back down. I dont know, but the serious falls across the board in the Russian markets today is going to add to pressure on Moscow, If the Moscovites do come across the Ukrainian border, I am beginning to wonder whether they may face something they do not expect. I guess its a function of the fear that we all feel here, but we can only pray that the wind is changing.
I believe you live in Tallinn which charmed my wife and I so much when we visited a few years ago
I hope you are assured that the UK is very much with you and active with the US in defending Ukraine sovereignty, as if that is lost then your security becomes very much a cause of concern
All the very best to you and everyone living in the Baltic States
Firstly a lot of people are asking whether Putin might invade Ukraine. Oddly enough this is in its own way a propaganda victory for the Kremlin. They have already annexed Crimea in contravention of the 1994 treaty in which Ukraine agreed to surrender its nuclear weapons and are plainly encouraging the ongoing conflict in the Donbass. So it's clear that Putin has already invaded we just forgot about that. The only question is whether there might be a further escalation of the current conflict.
Secondly many people seem to be blaming the tension on all sides and that it is such loose talk that could lead to war. Let's be clear about what has happened. As well as the above, we have Putin's long essay insisting that Russia and Ukraine are one people, that Ukraine isn't a real country etc, the cyber attacks, we have the extraordinary list of demands to avoid war including the scaling back of Nato and a guarantee that Ukraine would never join whilst amassing an enormous army near the border. You have to be deeply irrational in Ukraine not to be seriously worried about this. Could Putin be bluffing? Maybe but even if he is such overtly threatening behaviour is deplorable. Accusing Ukraine of fanning the flames is ludicrous.
Not that I am gung ho. The worst thing you can do is tell someone you have their back and then disappear with them feeling mistakenly confident. If you take the view that it's nothing to do with us or our national interest a la Peter Hitchens, fine. Just be honest enough to say so. But don't pretend it's a question of 'they're both as bad as each other.' I admit to a certain admiration for Mr Zelensky. I'm sure he's not perfect, politicians who have to take decisions rarely are but he seems to have resisted Trump's attempts at bribery and wants to move his country forward. I hope he gets the chance.
(Edit: I am available for £3 an hour as the joke has already been made)
I wonder if Carrie arranged for a Russian violinist to burst free from the cake to serenade the birthday boy?
Right, what's all this Russian violinist stuff about? I've seen it referred to a few times and I've no clue.
There are entirely unsubstantiated rumours that I put no stock in that Boris Johnson was friendly with Olga Kholodnaya. Here's a video of her playing in the Moscow underground: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAyvuUZm9uo
At least read the description of the video..
"This Video was made during our last Metro/Street Performance in the Metro Station Châtelet in Paris."
Ukraine - My own thoughts right now, are of the sizable community (or rather communities) of Ukrainian Americans in the Rust Belt towns of western Pennsylvania, my own birthplace and early stomping grounds.
Go to these places, drive around a bit, and won't be long before you notice the large Ukrainian Orthodox and Ruthenian Catholic churches dotting the gritty landscape. Built by great-grandparents of current parishioners, who immigrated mostly from western Ukraine just after 1900, recruited to provide unskilled labor for huge steel mills, built mainly along the banks of the Ohio and Monongahela rivers.
Also thinking of the MANY Ukrainian Canadians who are a major presence in the Prairie Provinces. Whose forebearers (sometimes the brothers & sisters of those who went to western PA) were also recruited circa 1900. Only in their case by Ottawa & CPRR, to break the sod, plow the land, sow the grain and helped make the Canadian Prairies into one of the great wheat belts and bread baskets of the New World, just as their homeland was for the Old World.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
Yes, it does make it harder. It feels like a corner has been turned (not least by shocking turnarounds for Tories in Midlands etc, albeit most often thats sub samples) by which some of his former strengths - irreverence etc - are now hurting him.
He doesn't have a cohesive ideology, so once personal appeal goes someone else is no worse. But he has surprised often.
My Boris fan relative is still all for him.
Let's not forget the depth of trouble he would be in even if nobody had opened a single bottle in Downing Street in the whole of 2020-21
Beginning Nov Paterson End Nov peppa cbi speech 16 Dec North Salop
Allegra went on 8 Dec but partygate was in its infancy at the time of NS
The flat
Allegra is the killer image. One that the poor woman will have to endure for a long time to come and in many ways she was the most blameless of all of them. Just collateral damage working for a bunch of Hooray Henrys
Comments
What desperate times we live in.
https://twitter.com/hzeffman/status/1485691562055118856
She was there, but she didn't inhale the party...
NEW THREAD
Frankly, were I in her shoes I'd be pretty pissed by that. It undermines her investigation and puts it at the mercy of his agenda. He's behaving in exactly the same self-entitled twattish way he's accusing others of doing. Who the hell does he think he is?
I hope you are assured that the UK is very much with you and active with the US in defending Ukraine sovereignty, as if that is lost then your security becomes very much a cause of concern
All the very best to you and everyone living in the Baltic States
I’ll say it one more time before dinner. Norman releases something about Parties, there is outrage and you place “out by Q2 bets”. But a couple of days without Norman and the dust settles, it’s blown over.
Boris isn’t done for yet, it’s not his time done yet, too many stick with him on policy and delivery.
It’s a failed coup.
And we know what that means for those who fail. 😟
Steve and Neil are nonetheless both a pair of tw*ts if that helps Their hanging offence wasn't a patch on Bozza's birthday escapades.
(Twits?)
Firstly a lot of people are asking whether Putin might invade Ukraine. Oddly enough this is in its own way a propaganda victory for the Kremlin. They have already annexed Crimea in contravention of the 1994 treaty in which Ukraine agreed to surrender its nuclear weapons and are plainly encouraging the ongoing conflict in the Donbass. So it's clear that Putin has already invaded we just forgot about that. The only question is whether there might be a further escalation of the current conflict.
Secondly many people seem to be blaming the tension on all sides and that it is such loose talk that could lead to war. Let's be clear about what has happened. As well as the above, we have Putin's long essay insisting that Russia and Ukraine are one people, that Ukraine isn't a real country etc, the cyber attacks, we have the extraordinary list of demands to avoid war including the scaling back of Nato and a guarantee that Ukraine would never join whilst amassing an enormous army near the border. You have to be deeply irrational in Ukraine not to be seriously worried about this. Could Putin be bluffing? Maybe but even if he is such overtly threatening behaviour is deplorable. Accusing Ukraine of fanning the flames is ludicrous.
Not that I am gung ho. The worst thing you can do is tell someone you have their back and then disappear with them feeling mistakenly confident. If you take the view that it's nothing to do with us or our national interest a la Peter Hitchens, fine. Just be honest enough to say so. But don't pretend it's a question of 'they're both as bad as each other.' I admit to a certain admiration for Mr Zelensky. I'm sure he's not perfect, politicians who have to take decisions rarely are but he seems to have resisted Trump's attempts at bribery and wants to move his country forward. I hope he gets the chance.
"This Video was made during our last Metro/Street Performance in the Metro Station Châtelet in Paris."
Go to these places, drive around a bit, and won't be long before you notice the large Ukrainian Orthodox and Ruthenian Catholic churches dotting the gritty landscape. Built by great-grandparents of current parishioners, who immigrated mostly from western Ukraine just after 1900, recruited to provide unskilled labor for huge steel mills, built mainly along the banks of the Ohio and Monongahela rivers.
Also thinking of the MANY Ukrainian Canadians who are a major presence in the Prairie Provinces. Whose forebearers (sometimes the brothers & sisters of those who went to western PA) were also recruited circa 1900. Only in their case by Ottawa & CPRR, to break the sod, plow the land, sow the grain and helped make the Canadian Prairies into one of the great wheat belts and bread baskets of the New World, just as their homeland was for the Old World.