I actually think that this report is about as bad as it could be for Johnson given the constraints placed on it by the Met investigations. If Tory MPs had any guts they would move now before he destroys their whole brand, but they won't.
I'm guessing at least 5 or 6 per party, so that's a squillion or so.
If Boris is charged, convicted, sentenced and sent down. Boris, his supporters and possibly HYUFD will say he can carry on. There is no place where they will draw a line. Someone else has to draw that line.
Nelson Mandela was jailed and came back to lead his country but obviously I am not making that direct comparison.
If Boris was arrested and jailed he would have to cease being Tory leader and PM at that point
I think he will limp on until May, but be gone by June. My hair shirt promise is looking safe from my perspective.
May is a much better time for a leaving party for him after all.
Why? May 2018 was peak Corbyn - there are surprisingly few seats for the Tories to lose.
That maybe will be how they chose to spin it. It will be overall vote share that will be important. Also analysis of areas that have marginals. There is a lot of analysis that can be done.
Yep but none of the analysis is going to be bad enough to remove Boris from No 10. Anyone thinking that May 2022 is going to be seriously bad news for the Tories doesn't understand the May 2018 election.
As long as the Tories hold Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster then yes Boris will survive those too, as most of England outside London does not have local elections in May
Not going to excuse it. Clearly wrong. Big step to remove an elected PM. I will reflect carefully etc…
And they are someone who you could modestly describe as being a long standing critic of BJ and his policy platform.
On which basis I am working on the assumption that no VONC will be happening, unless it’s one triggered by BoJo acolytes that they have already calculated he would win.
I am still betting a VONC will happen. The majority of the 77 MPs who voted for Hunt in the final round of the Tory leadership election in 2019 and are still in the Commons will now submit letters, taking the number over the 54 required.
However I also predict Boris will still win that vote
Here's a thought... VONC threshold reached in the next few days, Johnson wins say 60% of the Tory MP votes and so cannot be challenged again for another 12 months...
In a few weeks the Met find evidence of criminal events and issue FPNs.
What then?
Boris is still safe unless he personally is found to have committed a criminal act.
Otherwise Boris would just sack the staff found to have committed criminal acts and they would be arrested by the Met
What? The PM safe in office unless he broke the law. Good grief. How low we have fallen.
Berlusconi and Sarkozy and Fillon were convicted of criminal offences, only Fillon served time though.
Berlusconi still leads Forza Italia
Until Bozo arrived Politics in Britain had higher moral standards than Italy.
If Boris is charged, convicted, sentenced and sent down. Boris, his supporters and possibly HYUFD will say he can carry on. There is no place where they will draw a line. Someone else has to draw that line.
Nelson Mandela was jailed and came back to lead his country but obviously I am not making that direct comparison.
We now go live to Ken Livingstone:
"You know who else was jailed and came back to lead his country..."
If Boris is charged, convicted, sentenced and sent down. Boris, his supporters and possibly HYUFD will say he can carry on. There is no place where they will draw a line. Someone else has to draw that line.
Nelson Mandela was jailed and came back to lead his country but obviously I am not making that direct comparison.
If Boris was arrested and jailed he would have to cease being Tory leader and PM at that point
Our Lord was arrested and jailed, and worse. If even He could come back from that, I am disappointed by your low expectations for the Dear Leader.
If Boris is charged, convicted, sentenced and sent down. Boris, his supporters and possibly HYUFD will say he can carry on. There is no place where they will draw a line. Someone else has to draw that line.
If Boris was arrested and jailed he would have to cease being Tory leader and PM at that point
I think if he’s interviewed under caution, let alone charged, convicted or imprisoned he’ll be gone.
The "report" is riddled with cadences so ugly that they were either written by SeanT or they are being used to conceal a hidden message.
For example: Every citizen has been impacted by the pandemic. Everyone has made personal sacrifices, some the most profound, having been unable to see loved ones in their last moments or care for vulnerable family and friends. It is with that context in mind that I make the following general limited findings.
Do we have any steganography experts, or is it just a turd?
If Boris is charged, convicted, sentenced and sent down. Boris, his supporters and possibly HYUFD will say he can carry on. There is no place where they will draw a line. Someone else has to draw that line.
Nelson Mandela was jailed and came back to lead his country but obviously I am not making that direct comparison.
If Boris was arrested and jailed he would have to cease being Tory leader and PM at that point
Our Lord was arrested and jailed, and worse. If even He could come back from that, I am disappointed by your low expectations for the Dear Leader.
If Boris is charged, convicted, sentenced and sent down. Boris, his supporters and possibly HYUFD will say he can carry on. There is no place where they will draw a line. Someone else has to draw that line.
Nelson Mandela was jailed and came back to lead his country but obviously I am not making that direct comparison.
If Boris was arrested and jailed he would have to cease being Tory leader and PM at that point
He is no Nelson Mandela, no Winston Churchill, no Margaret Thatcher or any other leader of note.
He is a vain, clownish fool, who is not going to prison of course, but he will be remembered as the most embarrassing unfit for office idiot we have ever had as PM. You, and the rest of the gullible fools who voted for him should hang your head in shame for what you have done to our country.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 15m Anyone who thinks the Met investigating a dozen parties inside No.10 when people couldn’t bury their dead is “good news for the Prime Minister” needs their head examining.
Starmer has two things do go in here, surely. The report is saying both that there were parties on those other dates, which he said there wasn't, and also apparently that the guidance wasn't followed overall, with reference not only to the details of the events she can include, but also the others - it's not clear in the report, unless I've missed something.
For a redacted report that is about as bad as it could have been. No idea what happens next other than he will not resign. Is a cabinet resignation possible? Or a Dom Bomb?
@TiceRichard · 1m GRAY UPDATE: in a serious business, failures of leadership, failures of judgment, excessive drinking, & regular rule breaking within HQ leading to police investigations, would result in Chief Exec resigning or being fired by the Board. In No 10…. Over to Cabinet & Tory MPs…
The "report" is riddled with cadences so ugly that they were either written by SeanT or they are being used to conceal a hidden message.
For example: Every citizen has been impacted by the pandemic. Everyone has made personal sacrifices, some the most profound, having been unable to see loved ones in their last moments or care for vulnerable family and friends. It is with that context in mind that I make the following general limited findings.
Do we have any steganography experts, or is it just a turd?
She famously doesn't like writing stuff down.
It's pretty much how I write. I would say, on that assumption, that the phrase "general limited findings" was her preferred term of art, the rest is getting there.
For a redacted report that is about as bad as it could have been. No idea what happens next other than he will not resign. Is a cabinet resignation possible? Or a Dom Bomb?
Yes, it reads to me like a brief excuse essay put into being by a student ( Boris ), with nevertheless some angry words in the margin from his frustrated and definitely annoyed teacher at the end.
I suggest some Civil Servants, high and low, are going to be thrown under the bus. The PM is going to ‘have been dreadfully let down’ and he’s going to get some ‘more reliable’ staff. He ‘inherited most of these staff from his predecessors’ … even if he didn’t, but by the time that’s been established events will have moved on.
@TiceRichard · 1m GRAY UPDATE: in a serious business, failures of leadership, failures of judgment, excessive drinking, & regular rule breaking within HQ leading to police investigations, would result in Chief Exec resigning or being fired by the Board. In No 10…. Over to Cabinet & Tory MPs…
Hallelujah - but it takes Tice of all people to make you see the light
Not enough to topple Johnson before the next election. But enough to leave the stench of criminality around him for good.
Far too early to say that.
If the Met determine the PM broke the law (considering the flat is one investigated by them) then surely that is the end of Boris.
If the Met determine the law wasn't broken, then that should be the end of the matter too.
Either way, I don't see how this can drag on until the election.
That's a reframing in his favour that doesn't work. The bar is whether he lied to Parliament not whether he gets a fixed penalty notice. If he lied to Parliament he must go. Or to put it differently, if the evidence shows he lied to Parliament about these rule-breaking parties in the middle of a pandemic but he *still* won't resign, Tory MPs simply must remove him. And if they don't the public must punish them with a shellacking in the polls and a landslide loss of seats. If none of this happens we're fucked. It's Banana Republic and total loss of self-respect here we come.
@TiceRichard · 1m GRAY UPDATE: in a serious business, failures of leadership, failures of judgment, excessive drinking, & regular rule breaking within HQ leading to police investigations, would result in Chief Exec resigning or being fired by the Board. In No 10…. Over to Cabinet & Tory MPs…
Are you ok @HYUFD ? You're flipping about like a stranded eel.
I suggest some Civil Servants, high and low, are going to be thrown under the bus. The PM is going to ‘have been dreadfully let down’ and he’s going to get some ‘more reliable’ staff. He ‘inherited most of these staff from his predecessors’ … even if he didn’t, but by the time that’s been established events will have moved on.
I don't think that civil servants deserver protecting in this. They were adults, who claim to be big enough to help run the country.
PDF tip. You can sometimes learn about the construction of the document by selecting all (Ctrl-A if you're on a Windows machine).
For example, scroll down to section 23. You can see from the blue highlighting that "limited" was added at a separate time from rest of the sentence.
In Section 16, "setting out general findings" appears to have been changed to "setting out some general findings now"
Section 13 is fascinating. The bit around the "secure storage" of information looks like it's been gone over a few times. Possibly some dithering or to and fro over the wording here.
@TiceRichard · 1m GRAY UPDATE: in a serious business, failures of leadership, failures of judgment, excessive drinking, & regular rule breaking within HQ leading to police investigations, would result in Chief Exec resigning or being fired by the Board. In No 10…. Over to Cabinet & Tory MPs…
Hallelujah - but it takes Tice of all people to make you see the light
I suggest some Civil Servants, high and low, are going to be thrown under the bus. The PM is going to ‘have been dreadfully let down’ and he’s going to get some ‘more reliable’ staff. He ‘inherited most of these staff from his predecessors’ … even if he didn’t, but by the time that’s been established events will have moved on.
I don't think that civil servants deserver protecting in this. They were adults, who claim to be big enough to help run the country.
If your bosses boss was there you should be let off imo.
@TiceRichard · 1m GRAY UPDATE: in a serious business, failures of leadership, failures of judgment, excessive drinking, & regular rule breaking within HQ leading to police investigations, would result in Chief Exec resigning or being fired by the Board. In No 10…. Over to Cabinet & Tory MPs…
Hallelujah - but it takes Tice of all people to make you see the light
I only posted it as he is RefUK leader. Not as I necessarily agreed with it
These are the bits that I would highlight. "At least some of the gatherings in question represent a serious failure to observe ... the standards expected of the entire British population at the time."
"There were failures of leadership and judgment by different parts of No 10.."
"There is significant learning to be drawn from these events which must be addressed immediately across Government. This does not need to wait for the police investigations to be concluded."
If Tory MPs were waiting for a trigger to take action it is there. Of course, there's always a reason to procrastinate if you don't want to do something.
PDF tip. You can sometimes learn about the construction of the document by selecting all (Ctrl-A if you're on a Windows machine).
For example, scroll down to section 23. You can see from the blue highlighting that "limited" was added at a separate time from rest of the sentence.
In Section 16, "setting out general findings" appears to have been changed to "setting out some general findings now"
Section 13 is fascinating. The bit around the "secure storage" of information looks like it's been gone over a few times. Possibly some dithering or to and fro over the wording here.
Ah this is great fun. Anyone checked for an acrostic?
I suggest some Civil Servants, high and low, are going to be thrown under the bus. The PM is going to ‘have been dreadfully let down’ and he’s going to get some ‘more reliable’ staff. He ‘inherited most of these staff from his predecessors’ … even if he didn’t, but by the time that’s been established events will have moved on.
I don't think that civil servants deserver protecting in this. They were adults, who claim to be big enough to help run the country.
If your bosses boss was there you should be let off imo.
No - large numbers managed not to attend, apparently.
Not enough to topple Johnson before the next election. But enough to leave the stench of criminality around him for good.
Far too early to say that.
If the Met determine the PM broke the law (considering the flat is one investigated by them) then surely that is the end of Boris.
If the Met determine the law wasn't broken, then that should be the end of the matter too.
Either way, I don't see how this can drag on until the election.
That's a reframing in his favour that doesn't work. The bar is whether he lied to Parliament not whether he gets a fixed penalty notice. If he lied to Parliament he must go. Or to put it differently, if the evidence shows he lied to Parliament about these rule-breaking parties in the middle of a pandemic but he *still* won't resign, Tory MPs simply must remove him. And if they don't the public must punish them with a shellacking in the polls and a landslide loss of seats. If none of this happens we're fucked. It's Banana Republic and total loss of self-respect here we come.
Whether the law was broken, or whether the rules were broken, is the same thing.
Guidelines are not rules. They're guidelines. Laws are the rules.
This lies to Parliament thing is weird because if the threshold to say he lied has been met, the threshold he has to go for other reasons has also already been met. So yes if he's lied to Parliament he should go, but in this case it's an unnecessary and redundant condition.
@TiceRichard · 1m GRAY UPDATE: in a serious business, failures of leadership, failures of judgment, excessive drinking, & regular rule breaking within HQ leading to police investigations, would result in Chief Exec resigning or being fired by the Board. In No 10…. Over to Cabinet & Tory MPs…
Hallelujah - but it takes Tice of all people to make you see the light
I only posted it as he is RefUK leader. Not as I necessarily agreed with it
If you post something without comment do not be surprised if it is read as an endorsement
I think he will limp on until May, but be gone by June. My hair shirt promise is looking safe from my perspective.
May is a much better time for a leaving party for him after all.
Why? May 2018 was peak Corbyn - there are surprisingly few seats for the Tories to lose.
That maybe will be how they chose to spin it. It will be overall vote share that will be important. Also analysis of areas that have marginals. There is a lot of analysis that can be done.
Yep but none of the analysis is going to be bad enough to remove Boris from No 10. Anyone thinking that May 2022 is going to be seriously bad news for the Tories doesn't understand the May 2018 election.
Well thank you Mr Eek for pointing out the apparent inadequacy of my political understanding and the superiority of yours. In order that I might 1) put in an order for a hair shirt and 2) enhance my understanding, please enlighten me how, for example, a less than 30% of votes for the Tories might not be considered bad news by Tory MPs?
Also worth underlining that Sue Gray is a career civil servant writing an internal report - phrases like "failures of leadership and judgement" are the linguistic equivalent of smashing a beer bottle on the bar. Almost all of the detail has been held back, but the author has not https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1488169783463919622
As a matter of interest, why don't the Westminster Conservative Party politely ask Boris Johnson to stand down temporarily pending police investigation?
If criminal activity is found, he goes. If it isn't, he stays.
PDF tip. You can sometimes learn about the construction of the document by selecting all (Ctrl-A if you're on a Windows machine).
For example, scroll down to section 23. You can see from the blue highlighting that "limited" was added at a separate time from rest of the sentence.
In Section 16, "setting out general findings" appears to have been changed to "setting out some general findings now"
Section 13 is fascinating. The bit around the "secure storage" of information looks like it's been gone over a few times. Possibly some dithering or to and fro over the wording here.
Ah this is great fun. Anyone checked for an acrostic?
The section I highlighted earlier has an acrostic of "EESH" if you take the first letter of each clause (not sentences). Which is funny because that's how a lot of us feel, but there's no hidden code as far as I can see
@TiceRichard · 1m GRAY UPDATE: in a serious business, failures of leadership, failures of judgment, excessive drinking, & regular rule breaking within HQ leading to police investigations, would result in Chief Exec resigning or being fired by the Board. In No 10…. Over to Cabinet & Tory MPs…
Not sure what Tice is saying here. That there should be a board of directors that the PM answers to? Or that the cabinet should be expected to fulfill this role?
As a matter of interest, why don't the Westminster Conservative Party politely ask Boris Johnson to stand down temporarily pending police investigation?
If criminal activity is found, he goes. If it isn't, he stays.
@TiceRichard · 1m GRAY UPDATE: in a serious business, failures of leadership, failures of judgment, excessive drinking, & regular rule breaking within HQ leading to police investigations, would result in Chief Exec resigning or being fired by the Board. In No 10…. Over to Cabinet & Tory MPs…
Not sure what Tice is saying here. That there should be a board of directors that the PM answers to? Or that the cabinet should be expected to fulfill this role?
Fairly obvious. Saying should resign and if not be removed by the cabinet or Tory MPs. All of which is what should happen, but probably won't.
"As a result of the Metropolitan Police’s investigations, and so as not to prejudice the police investigative process, they have told me that it would only be appropriate to make minimal reference to the gatherings on the dates they are investigating.
Unfortunately, this necessarily means that I am extremely limited in what I can say about those events and it is not possible at present to provide a meaningful report setting out and analysing the extensive factual information I have been able to gather"
Rare to see a report so blatantly admit its own pointlessness.
As a matter of interest, why don't the Westminster Conservative Party politely ask Boris Johnson to stand down temporarily pending police investigation?
If criminal activity is found, he goes. If it isn't, he stays.
I suggest some Civil Servants, high and low, are going to be thrown under the bus. The PM is going to ‘have been dreadfully let down’ and he’s going to get some ‘more reliable’ staff. He ‘inherited most of these staff from his predecessors’ … even if he didn’t, but by the time that’s been established events will have moved on.
I don't think that civil servants deserver protecting in this. They were adults, who claim to be big enough to help run the country.
We need to see how many of the people at these parties were real civil servants and how many were political appointees by Johnson.
Time will tell (hopefully) but I think it's easy to blame 'civil servants' when I suspect many of those involved were no such thing (in the generally accepted sense)
To a tosspot lapping it up on a far away island, who doesn't care about what we all went through, yep.
And your disdainful remark about Swindon just says it all about your character, but then I guess we knew that really from your boasting about drug taking and sexual encounters, especially teenagers.
The "report" is riddled with cadences so ugly that they were either written by SeanT or they are being used to conceal a hidden message.
For example: Every citizen has been impacted by the pandemic. Everyone has made personal sacrifices, some the most profound, having been unable to see loved ones in their last moments or care for vulnerable family and friends. It is with that context in mind that I make the following general limited findings.
Do we have any steganography experts, or is it just a turd?
She famously doesn't like writing stuff down.
I think it's more a combination of pressure and changes made by others and working on it late till she's cross-eyed. And lack of time to revise. When I'm writing a detailed research paper I need to leave it for a clear week before revising *just* to check the style and grammar.
As a matter of interest, why don't the Westminster Conservative Party politely ask Boris Johnson to stand down temporarily pending police investigation?
If criminal activity is found, he goes. If it isn't, he stays.
Meantime they appoint a caretaker.
Because they're frit of the Big Dog.
The problem with big dogs is that they create very large piles of shit to clean up
Difficult to express how boring this all seems from 5000 miles away, by the lacy moonlit waves of the Laccadive Sea
I accept that’s it’s probably way more exciting if you are there in, er, Swindon, or whatever.
It just seems phenomenally trivial. Obviously wrong, but equally trivial.
I wonder if for this reason Boris has an unexpected chance of reviving, as no other PM which such terrible polling has ever done.
We're all just filling in time waiting for the a report on whether you're going to mixing your gin with water, tonic, or barbiturates before a midnight swim. Until we get the good stuff, we're stuck thinking about the governance of our country and other trifles.
As a matter of interest, why don't the Westminster Conservative Party politely ask Boris Johnson to stand down temporarily pending police investigation?
If criminal activity is found, he goes. If it isn't, he stays.
It reads in parts like an Ofsted report. If No 10 were a school, and this were an Ofsted report, the judgement would be "Special Measures" and the Headteacher and the Chair of Governors would be gone pretty quickly.
If Boris is charged, convicted, sentenced and sent down. Boris, his supporters and possibly HYUFD will say he can carry on. There is no place where they will draw a line. Someone else has to draw that line.
Nelson Mandela was jailed and came back to lead his country but obviously I am not making that direct comparison.
If Boris was arrested and jailed he would have to cease being Tory leader and PM at that point
What a bizarre comment
You become more ridiculous day by day
Actually quite a few leaders have done time then returned to lead
Lenin? Stalin maybe Vaclav Havel Gandhi Ho Chi Minh Aung Sun Sue Khi Nehru
Difficult to express how boring this all seems from 5000 miles away, by the lacy moonlit waves of the Laccadive Sea
I accept that’s it’s probably way more exciting if you are there in, er, Swindon, or whatever.
It just seems phenomenally trivial. Obviously wrong, but equally trivial.
I wonder if for this reason Boris has an unexpected chance of reviving, as no other PM which such terrible polling has ever done.
A BoJo luvvie speaks
He still has around 20-25% of the countries support so it would be strange if there were no supporters on here. If continually lying to us is trivial, I can see why they still like him. Delivers sunny false optimism, but if the false does not matter as it is dull, then why not?
@TiceRichard · 1m GRAY UPDATE: in a serious business, failures of leadership, failures of judgment, excessive drinking, & regular rule breaking within HQ leading to police investigations, would result in Chief Exec resigning or being fired by the Board. In No 10…. Over to Cabinet & Tory MPs…
Not sure what Tice is saying here. That there should be a board of directors that the PM answers to? Or that the cabinet should be expected to fulfill this role?
As I said on the other thread, it's only HMtQ or God above Mr J in the current mostly theocratic setup of the constitution. So unless HMtQ appoints someone, that's it.
If Boris is charged, convicted, sentenced and sent down. Boris, his supporters and possibly HYUFD will say he can carry on. There is no place where they will draw a line. Someone else has to draw that line.
Nelson Mandela was jailed and came back to lead his country but obviously I am not making that direct comparison.
If Boris was arrested and jailed he would have to cease being Tory leader and PM at that point
What a bizarre comment
You become more ridiculous day by day
Actually quite a few leaders have done time then returned to lead
Lenin? Stalin maybe Vaclav Havel Gandhi Ho Chi Minh Aung Sun Sue Khi Nehru
Bernard: And as you know the letters JB are the highest honour in the Commonwealth. Hacker: JB? Sir Humphrey: Jailed by the British. Gandhi, Nkrumah, Makarios, Ben Gurion, Kenyatta, Nehru, Mugabe, the list of world leaders is endless, and contains several of our students.
If Boris is charged, convicted, sentenced and sent down. Boris, his supporters and possibly HYUFD will say he can carry on. There is no place where they will draw a line. Someone else has to draw that line.
Nelson Mandela was jailed and came back to lead his country but obviously I am not making that direct comparison.
If Boris was arrested and jailed he would have to cease being Tory leader and PM at that point
What a bizarre comment
You become more ridiculous day by day
Actually quite a few leaders have done time then returned to lead
Lenin? Stalin maybe Vaclav Havel Gandhi Ho Chi Minh Aung Sun Sue Khi Nehru
To a tosspot lapping it up on a far away island, who doesn't care about what we all went through, yep.
And your disdainful remark about Swindon just says it all about your character, but then I guess we knew that really from your boasting about drug taking and sexual encounters, especially teenagers.
Sean Thomas a guide to morals? I don't think so.
"Sean Thomas a guide to morals" - the concept speaks for itself.
If Boris is charged, convicted, sentenced and sent down. Boris, his supporters and possibly HYUFD will say he can carry on. There is no place where they will draw a line. Someone else has to draw that line.
Nelson Mandela was jailed and came back to lead his country
This is a particularly remarkable moment in the life of politicalbetting.com
(And, no, even saying you're not making a 'direct' comparison doesn't help)
If no comparison had been intended, there was no conceivable reason for his having typed it out
A question that Conservative MPs will have to ask themselves is this. If they leave Johnson in place, how will they justify this delay to their constituents when the full details are finally (and inevitably) set out?
Not enough to topple Johnson before the next election. But enough to leave the stench of criminality around him for good.
Far too early to say that.
If the Met determine the PM broke the law (considering the flat is one investigated by them) then surely that is the end of Boris.
If the Met determine the law wasn't broken, then that should be the end of the matter too.
Either way, I don't see how this can drag on until the election.
That's a reframing in his favour that doesn't work. The bar is whether he lied to Parliament not whether he gets a fixed penalty notice. If he lied to Parliament he must go. Or to put it differently, if the evidence shows he lied to Parliament about these rule-breaking parties in the middle of a pandemic but he *still* won't resign, Tory MPs simply must remove him. And if they don't the public must punish them with a shellacking in the polls and a landslide loss of seats. If none of this happens we're fucked. It's Banana Republic and total loss of self-respect here we come.
Whether the law was broken, or whether the rules were broken, is the same thing.
Guidelines are not rules. They're guidelines. Laws are the rules.
This lies to Parliament thing is weird because if the threshold to say he lied has been met, the threshold he has to go for other reasons has also already been met. So yes if he's lied to Parliament he should go, but in this case it's an unnecessary and redundant condition.
No, if he lied it doesn't follow he'll get a penalty notice. Likewise if he doesn't get a penalty notice it doesn't follow he didn't lie.
He said he had no knowledge of rule-breaking events. Will the Gray Report (when we get the proper one) and/or the Met investigation show that to be a lie?
Not going to excuse it. Clearly wrong. Big step to remove an elected PM. I will reflect carefully etc…
And they are someone who you could modestly describe as being a long standing critic of BJ and his policy platform.
On which basis I am working on the assumption that no VONC will be happening, unless it’s one triggered by BoJo acolytes that they have already calculated he would win.
I am still betting a VONC will happen. The majority of the 77 MPs who voted for Hunt in the final round of the Tory leadership election in 2019 and are still in the Commons will now submit letters, taking the number over the 54 required.
However I also predict Boris will still win that vote
Here's a thought... VONC threshold reached in the next few days, Johnson wins say 60% of the Tory MP votes and so cannot be challenged again for another 12 months...
In a few weeks the Met find evidence of criminal events and issue FPNs.
What then?
Boris is still safe unless he personally is found to have committed a criminal act.
Otherwise Boris would just sack the staff found to have committed criminal acts and they would be arrested by the Met
What? The PM safe in office unless he broke the law. Good grief. How low we have fallen.
Berlusconi and Sarkozy and Fillon were convicted of criminal offences, only Fillon served time though.
Berlusconi still leads Forza Italia
Until Bozo arrived Politics in Britain had higher moral standards than Italy.
Apart from say Blair taking a million donation to the Labour party to change a policy, I'd generally agree with you.
A question that Conservative MPs will have to ask themselves is this. If they leave Johnson in place, how will they justify this delay to their constituents when the full details are finally (and inevitably) set out?
This theme followed through to its logical conclusion leads to a new “temp”PM chosen by the cabinet by tomorrow. If Frost hadn’t resigned he would be the slam dunk choice, as he couldn’t realistically run for the job full time in this day and age.
If Boris is charged, convicted, sentenced and sent down. Boris, his supporters and possibly HYUFD will say he can carry on. There is no place where they will draw a line. Someone else has to draw that line.
Nelson Mandela was jailed and came back to lead his country but obviously I am not making that direct comparison.
If Boris was arrested and jailed he would have to cease being Tory leader and PM at that point
What a bizarre comment
You become more ridiculous day by day
Actually quite a few leaders have done time then returned to lead
Lenin? Stalin maybe Vaclav Havel Gandhi Ho Chi Minh Aung Sun Sue Khi Nehru
Oh, that's much more like it! With that post you are competing with HYUFD for the Unembarrassed Boris Apologist Award, also known as the Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf Award for Most Comical & Absurd Defence
I don't think this is fatal, it would for some leaders as they would honourably fall on their sword if they were in this situation (a lot of leaders wouldn't have got themselves in that situation in the first place) but not Boris
He will find a way to blame senior civil servants or advisers, even though the buck should stop with him, that he allowed a culture like this to flourish during a time of national crisis.
If Boris is charged, convicted, sentenced and sent down. Boris, his supporters and possibly HYUFD will say he can carry on. There is no place where they will draw a line. Someone else has to draw that line.
Nelson Mandela was jailed and came back to lead his country but obviously I am not making that direct comparison.
If Boris was arrested and jailed he would have to cease being Tory leader and PM at that point
What a bizarre comment
You become more ridiculous day by day
Actually quite a few leaders have done time then returned to lead
Lenin? Stalin maybe Vaclav Havel Gandhi Ho Chi Minh Aung Sun Sue Khi Nehru
If Boris is charged, convicted, sentenced and sent down. Boris, his supporters and possibly HYUFD will say he can carry on. There is no place where they will draw a line. Someone else has to draw that line.
Nelson Mandela was jailed and came back to lead his country but obviously I am not making that direct comparison.
If Boris was arrested and jailed he would have to cease being Tory leader and PM at that point
What a bizarre comment
You become more ridiculous day by day
Actually quite a few leaders have done time then returned to lead
Lenin? Stalin maybe Vaclav Havel Gandhi Ho Chi Minh Aung Sun Sue Khi Nehru
Oh, that's much more like it! With that post you are competing with HYUFD for the Unembarrassed Boris Apologist Award, also known as the Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf Award for Most Comical & Absurd Defence
There is more an issue of why these persons went to prison. Herr Hitler, for instance, did not go to prison for his government of the Third Reich. He went to prison for trying to overthrow the Weimar Republic (or the Bavarian Land - I'ma bit hazy on that detail at present, but you get the idea). And Mr Mandela did not go to prison for his implementation of the apartheid policy of the RSA Government at the time.
Comments
You become more ridiculous day by day
For example, scroll down to section 23. You can see from the blue highlighting that "limited" was added at a separate time from rest of the sentence.
In Section 16, "setting out general findings" appears to have been changed to "setting out some general findings now"
https://twitter.com/kitty_donaldson/status/1488165706755682304
Starmer needs to ask it Paxman style. No grandiose statements - go full cross examination
"You know who else was jailed and came back to lead his country..."
That's conclusive. Surely.
God bless Catherine Elizabeth West MP. Not bad for a convict.
He is a vain, clownish fool, who is not going to prison of course, but he will be remembered as the most embarrassing unfit for office idiot we have ever had as PM. You, and the rest of the gullible fools who voted for him should hang your head in shame for what you have done to our country.
@DPJHodges
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15m
Anyone who thinks the Met investigating a dozen parties inside No.10 when people couldn’t bury their dead is “good news for the Prime Minister” needs their head examining.
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1488162937659346944
She's terrible!
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1m
GRAY UPDATE: in a serious business, failures of leadership, failures of judgment, excessive drinking, & regular rule breaking within HQ leading to police investigations, would result in Chief Exec resigning or being fired by the Board.
In No 10….
Over to Cabinet & Tory MPs…
On this occasion the lawyer should walk it
a) If the penalties for breaching the Covid rules were only FPNs and...
b) If receiving and paying uncontested a FPN equates to breaking the law and/or a criminal action?
Thanks
Nor 180 willing to vote for the inevitable.
"At least some of the gatherings in question represent a serious failure to observe ... the standards expected of the entire British population at the time."
"There were failures of leadership and judgment by different parts of No 10.."
"There is significant learning to be drawn from these events which must be addressed immediately across Government. This does not need to wait for the police investigations to be concluded."
If Tory MPs were waiting for a trigger to take action it is there. Of course, there's always a reason to procrastinate if you don't want to do something.
However they do sort of admit you did the thing, so a lot of weight being put on "technically" there.
ETA: R v Hunter (Nigel) [2015] EWCA Crim 631
Guidelines are not rules. They're guidelines. Laws are the rules.
This lies to Parliament thing is weird because if the threshold to say he lied has been met, the threshold he has to go for other reasons has also already been met. So yes if he's lied to Parliament he should go, but in this case it's an unnecessary and redundant condition.
https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1488169783463919622
If criminal activity is found, he goes. If it isn't, he stays.
Meantime they appoint a caretaker.
I accept that’s it’s probably way more exciting if you are there in, er, Swindon, or whatever.
It just seems phenomenally trivial. Obviously wrong, but equally trivial.
I wonder if for this reason Boris has an unexpected chance of reviving, as no other PM which such terrible polling has ever done.
We need to see how many of the people at these parties were real civil servants and how many were political appointees by Johnson.
Time will tell (hopefully) but I think it's easy to blame 'civil servants' when I suspect many of those involved were no such thing (in the generally accepted sense)
And your disdainful remark about Swindon just says it all about your character, but then I guess we knew that really from your boasting about drug taking and sexual encounters, especially teenagers.
Sean Thomas a guide to morals? I don't think so.
Up to early December 2021 I suspect attending parties was a better career move as it meant you were in with the right people.
Until we get the good stuff, we're stuck thinking about the governance of our country and other trifles.
A patriotic party would remove him.
It's that simple.
Anyway, time to read it I suppose.
A patriotic party wouldn't have elevated him in the first place.
We knew.
If No 10 were a school, and this were an Ofsted report, the judgement would be "Special Measures" and the Headteacher and the Chair of Governors would be gone pretty quickly.
Lenin?
Stalin maybe
Vaclav Havel
Gandhi
Ho Chi Minh
Aung Sun Sue Khi
Nehru
theocratic setup of the constitution. So unless HMtQ appoints someone, that's it.
Bernard: And as you know the letters JB are the highest honour in the Commonwealth.
Hacker: JB?
Sir Humphrey: Jailed by the British. Gandhi, Nkrumah, Makarios, Ben Gurion, Kenyatta, Nehru, Mugabe, the list of world leaders is endless, and contains several of our students.
David Gauke @DavidGauke
A question that Conservative MPs will have to ask themselves is this. If they leave Johnson in place, how will they justify this delay to their constituents when the full details are finally (and inevitably) set out?
He said he had no knowledge of rule-breaking events. Will the Gray Report (when we get the proper one) and/or the Met investigation show that to be a lie?
Let's see.
I have a simple ethos - I don't want to do the time. So I don't do the crime. Or the sackable offences, either.
He will find a way to blame senior civil servants or advisers, even though the buck should stop with him, that he allowed a culture like this to flourish during a time of national crisis.
You basically end up with 2 people responsible for this mess and the one at the very top is going to do anything and everything to stay there.
@AGKD123
3m
"Ain't no party like a party the Metropolitan Police consider to have reached the threshold for criminal investigation"
https://twitter.com/AGKD123/status/1488173075753492483
"Thoughts and prayers"
It all just sounds so American to me.