I think I now understand the Prime Minister's defence against claims he misled the House when he denied that there was a party in Downing Street on 13th November 2020. There wasn't *a* party: there were two parties!
If you have a few friends round for a celebratory drink - at what point does it become something that is defined as a party.
I suspect anything that doesn't have a formal party invitation isn't a party in Carrie / Boris's world.
Steve Baker intervention notably unhelpful. Seems to have made his mind up. Given what Mark Harper, former chief whip, said a few minutes ago not looking good for the PM.
The 54 letters is just the start of course. Could he go on to survive the resulting VOC?
Davey - What? 100ks of parents burying their children? Obv even one is too many, but that is barking
Did he mean children burying their parents, and misspeak ?
There would also have been people in their 40s, 50s etc dying with one or both parents still alive. Even including those, 100k seems far too high.
I was thinking of my father's funeral, in spring 2020, where only a handful of close family could attend under the then rules. We weren't even allowed inside the crematorium.
I wasn't allowed to visit an uncle who was a father figure to me. He died before I could say goodbye.
If people like Leon don't get this then they are sewerage.
Next 48 hours are critical. I expect Johnson to fly to Ukraine tonight or tomorrow morning to try to deflect attention. Tory MPs either see through it and act or they're stuck with Johnson until at least May and quite possibly 2024, when they will get a trouncing.
p.s. Sir Keir Starmer is looking prime ministerial. Dour and sometimes (really) dull but prime ministerial.
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.
Presenting things as boring or complicated and so not worth the bother is a standard evasion tactic.
Much will be trivial, were it not for the context and particularly comments made about those events. And suddenly even the boring and trivial can become more vital. The pettiness can compound the error not exculpate the participant.
I just get the sense - from a trillion miles away on balcony on a tropical seashore - that this is beginning to bore the fuck out of voters. And today won’t make any difference - at least in the polls
I’m not saying it is boring PER SE, I’m a politics geek. Tho, actually, even as a geek this feels a bit damp squib-esque
We know he is a lying fuck, we know they lied and had pastries, whatever yawn yes, we hate them, but what are they going to do about the price of petrol? Etc?
The problem Leon is that he is not suitable to hold the office of PM. Simples. He needs to get back into showbiz and scre*ing single and married women. He cannot and is unwilling to take any responsibility; we have seen that numerous times both in politics and his personal life. He's really not a very nice man. Worst PM of my lifetime for sure, probably of all time.
For me he is better than Brown, May, Cameron, Wilson, Heath, Callaghan and Major. He did something amazing: won the Brexit vote. Then something even amazinger: forced Brexit through by winning a genius majority
If Boris is so amazing for getting Brexit done then surely Cameron is amazinger for having the vote in the first place.
In assessing the back benchers reaction it might be helpful to bear in mind that some might want proper low tax and freedom conservatism back at least as much as they want Boris gone.
If not more.
And they don't really care how they get it.
They can sell a few party transgressions to workers. What they cannot sell is higher taxes forever, rocketing fuel bills and slow growth. Like it or not, that is part of the narrative here.
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.
Presenting things as boring or complicated and so not worth the bother is a standard evasion tactic.
Much will be trivial, were it not for the context and particularly comments made about those events. And suddenly even the boring and trivial can become more vital. The pettiness can compound the error not exculpate the participant.
I just get the sense - from a trillion miles away on balcony on a tropical seashore - that this is beginning to bore the fuck out of voters. And today won’t make any difference - at least in the polls
I’m not saying it is boring PER SE, I’m a politics geek. Tho, actually, even as a geek this feels a bit damp squib-esque
We know he is a lying fuck, we know they lied and had pastries, whatever yawn yes, we hate them, but what are they going to do about the price of petrol? Etc?
The problem Leon is that he is not suitable to hold the office of PM. Simples. He needs to get back into showbiz and scre*ing single and married women. He cannot and is unwilling to take any responsibility; we have seen that numerous times both in politics and his personal life. He's really not a very nice man. Worst PM of my lifetime for sure, probably of all time.
We must agree to differ. For me he is better than Brown, May, Cameron, Wilson, Heath, Callaghan and Major. He did something amazing: won the Brexit vote. Then something even amazinger: forced Brexit through by winning a genius majority
Has he squandered all that with his idiotic lies and silly marriage and hie venal inability to focus? Yes, that too
So now it is time for him to go as he has been revealed as a lying twat good for not much more than winning campaigns (which he does brilliantly) and telling decent jokes. Off you toddle, now, Boris
But will he? All my points today have been practical not ideological. I can see him surviving, quite easily. Indeed I can see him winning another, slender majority in 2024. His mortal enemy is not partygate, not any more, it is tax and inflation
By the way, how was Sri Lanka this time? Hope you managed to get some decent food this time...
Superb food everywhere! I just this minute finished one of the best Goan prawn curries of my life
I must have been incredibly unlucky on my last trip Too many posh places and then too many unlucky choices on the street
The food this time has been outstanding. Last night I had s Sri Lankan mud crab curry with this hybrid Med/Asian seafood broth to start
OMFFFFG. Cost £11. In an ultra high end place
I’ve also eaten off the street, very well, for literal pennies: all good, some sensational. I am a convert!
Boris showing just a glimmer of a little smirk. He knows he's got away with this.
Too early to tell.
Four major events coming up, one of which I've seen nobody else mention yet, that could be "make or break" for him.
1: The Police investigation. If he gets found guilty of breaking the law, that's surely terminal. 2: The full Sue Gray report. If he knew about law breaking at the time and did nothing, that's surely terminal on its own. It would also as kinabalu likes to remind us mean he lied to Parliament and that would be terminal, but I think that's moot anyway it'd be terminal either way. 3: The May elections. A hammering for the Tories and its terminal.
Finally I've yet to see anyone else mention it yet but
4: The Budget. Given the pressures on "cost of living", inflation etc and how febrile the mood is this surely must be "make or break" for both Boris and Sunak too.
You can say that again. Obviously enraged and very upset. I think the decision to do the Big Dog act has been a spectacular mistake. A bit of contrition could have gone a long way.
Robert Peston @Peston · 2m The PM is taking a huge personal risk in rejecting Tory MP demands to publish Sue Gray’s more definitive “full” report - because he is removing from them any incentive to delay their decisions to send in letters of no confidence in his leadership
Steve Baker intervention notably unhelpful. Seems to have made his mind up. Given what Mark Harper, former chief whip, said a few minutes ago not looking good for the PM.
The 54 letters is just the start of course. Could he go on to survive the resulting VOC?
Yes, key for betting. 2 things have to happen for him to go. The letters. He loses the resulting VONC (or gets an insufficient margin to in practice carry on).
Boris showing just a glimmer of a little smirk. He knows he's got away with this.
Too early to tell.
Four major events coming up, one of which I've seen nobody else mention yet, that could be "make or break" for him.
1: The Police investigation. If he gets found guilty of breaking the law, that's surely terminal. 2: The full Sue Gray report. If he knew about law breaking at the time and did nothing, that's surely terminal on its own. It would also as kinabalu likes to remind us mean he lied to Parliament and that would be terminal, but I think that's moot anyway it'd be terminal either way. 3: The May elections. A hammering for the Tories and its terminal.
Finally I've yet to see anyone else mention it yet but
4: The Budget. Given the pressures on "cost of living", inflation etc and how febrile the mood is this surely must be "make or break" for both Boris and Sunak too.
Boris showing just a glimmer of a little smirk. He knows he's got away with this.
Too early to tell.
Four major events coming up, one of which I've seen nobody else mention yet, that could be "make or break" for him.
1: The Police investigation. If he gets found guilty of breaking the law, that's surely terminal. 2: The full Sue Gray report. If he knew about law breaking at the time and did nothing, that's surely terminal on its own. It would also as kinabalu likes to remind us mean he lied to Parliament and that would be terminal, but I think that's moot anyway it'd be terminal either way. 3: The May elections. A hammering for the Tories and its terminal.
Finally I've yet to see anyone else mention it yet but
4: The Budget. Given the pressures on "cost of living", inflation etc and how febrile the mood is this surely must be "make or break" for both Boris and Sunak too.
The Budget is in October / November. Next up is a spending review where there isn't any money to spend but a lot of people needing help with energy bills.
Steve Baker intervention notably unhelpful. Seems to have made his mind up. Given what Mark Harper, former chief whip, said a few minutes ago not looking good for the PM.
The 54 letters is just the start of course. Could he go on to survive the resulting VOC?
The letters are anonymous, but is the ballot?
Yep - it's take a ball and put it in 1 pot or the other.
The issue then is what comes after and this (which I posted earlier https://ukandeu.ac.uk/dilemma-boris-conservatives/ ) shows the problem - there is no clear answer as to what person (or policies) you replace Boris with.
Steve Baker intervention notably unhelpful. Seems to have made his mind up. Given what Mark Harper, former chief whip, said a few minutes ago not looking good for the PM.
The 54 letters is just the start of course. Could he go on to survive the resulting VOC?
Yes, key for betting. 2 things have to happen for him to go. The letters. He loses the resulting VONC (or gets an insufficient margin to in practice carry on).
For the timing markets, beware the fact that it took 2 months between TMay announcing her intention to resign and BJ becoming leader/PM.
PM is getting some support from his benches. The fact you have so many Tory MPs effectively saying he should resign, or saying he has insulted their constituents and then some loudly rallying to his banner speaks to just how toxic this could become to internal Tory politics. https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1488189620860899330
Commiserations to @Tissue_Price on losing his grandmother during the pandemic and being taken for a fool by a PM who didn't stick by the rules that prevented gatherings, including those of mourners grieving together.
Boris showing just a glimmer of a little smirk. He knows he's got away with this.
Too early to tell.
Four major events coming up, one of which I've seen nobody else mention yet, that could be "make or break" for him.
1: The Police investigation. If he gets found guilty of breaking the law, that's surely terminal. 2: The full Sue Gray report. If he knew about law breaking at the time and did nothing, that's surely terminal on its own. It would also as kinabalu likes to remind us mean he lied to Parliament and that would be terminal, but I think that's moot anyway it'd be terminal either way. 3: The May elections. A hammering for the Tories and its terminal.
Finally I've yet to see anyone else mention it yet but
4: The Budget. Given the pressures on "cost of living", inflation etc and how febrile the mood is this surely must be "make or break" for both Boris and Sunak too.
The Budget is in October / November. Next up is a spending review where there isn't any money to spend but a lot of people needing help with energy bills.
Oh yes, of course it is.
October / November is too late. The Spending Review will need to be treated as a Budget and something will need to be there for energy bills as you said. If the energy bills issue isn't dealt with that will be it for Boris and Sunak.
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.
Presenting things as boring or complicated and so not worth the bother is a standard evasion tactic.
Much will be trivial, were it not for the context and particularly comments made about those events. And suddenly even the boring and trivial can become more vital. The pettiness can compound the error not exculpate the participant.
I just get the sense - from a trillion miles away on balcony on a tropical seashore - that this is beginning to bore the fuck out of voters. And today won’t make any difference - at least in the polls
I’m not saying it is boring PER SE, I’m a politics geek. Tho, actually, even as a geek this feels a bit damp squib-esque
We know he is a lying fuck, we know they lied and had pastries, whatever yawn yes, we hate them, but what are they going to do about the price of petrol? Etc?
The problem Leon is that he is not suitable to hold the office of PM. Simples. He needs to get back into showbiz and scre*ing single and married women. He cannot and is unwilling to take any responsibility; we have seen that numerous times both in politics and his personal life. He's really not a very nice man. Worst PM of my lifetime for sure, probably of all time.
For me he is better than Brown, May, Cameron, Wilson, Heath, Callaghan and Major. He did something amazing: won the Brexit vote. Then something even amazinger: forced Brexit through by winning a genius majority
If Boris is so amazing for getting Brexit done then surely Cameron is amazinger for having the vote in the first place.
And as for Heath, who teed the whole thing up in 1973. Doesn't get more farsighted than that...
NEW Senior Tory MP - not one or the usual critics - tells me: “That was a car crash. A lot of colleagues were waiting for the report to be published [before submitting letters of no confidence]. They may not wait now. He is is own worst enemy.” #SueGrayReport https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1488190396094111748
Boris showing just a glimmer of a little smirk. He knows he's got away with this.
Too early to tell.
Four major events coming up, one of which I've seen nobody else mention yet, that could be "make or break" for him.
1: The Police investigation. If he gets found guilty of breaking the law, that's surely terminal. 2: The full Sue Gray report. If he knew about law breaking at the time and did nothing, that's surely terminal on its own. It would also as kinabalu likes to remind us mean he lied to Parliament and that would be terminal, but I think that's moot anyway it'd be terminal either way. 3: The May elections. A hammering for the Tories and its terminal.
Finally I've yet to see anyone else mention it yet but
4: The Budget. Given the pressures on "cost of living", inflation etc and how febrile the mood is this surely must be "make or break" for both Boris and Sunak too.
The Budget is in October / November. Next up is a spending review where there isn't any money to spend but a lot of people needing help with energy bills.
Oh yes, of course it is.
October / November is too late. The Spending Review will need to be treated as a Budget and something will need to be there for energy bills as you said. If the energy bills issue isn't dealt with that will be it for Boris and Sunak.
Where's all the money gone?
You....er....spent it on furlough chancellor. A furlough your leader didn't really believe in....but on the upside, most of it wasn't the target of fraud...
NEW Senior Tory MP - not one or the usual critics - tells me: “That was a car crash. A lot of colleagues were waiting for the report to be published [before submitting letters of no confidence]. They may not wait now. He is is own worst enemy.” #SueGrayReport https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1488190396094111748
I still can't believe Priti Patel nodding in agreement with Sir Keir Starmer.
Blimey.
I might not be quite so scathing about her from now on.
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.
Presenting things as boring or complicated and so not worth the bother is a standard evasion tactic.
Much will be trivial, were it not for the context and particularly comments made about those events. And suddenly even the boring and trivial can become more vital. The pettiness can compound the error not exculpate the participant.
I just get the sense - from a trillion miles away on balcony on a tropical seashore - that this is beginning to bore the fuck out of voters. And today won’t make any difference - at least in the polls
I’m not saying it is boring PER SE, I’m a politics geek. Tho, actually, even as a geek this feels a bit damp squib-esque
We know he is a lying fuck, we know they lied and had pastries, whatever yawn yes, we hate them, but what are they going to do about the price of petrol? Etc?
The problem Leon is that he is not suitable to hold the office of PM. Simples. He needs to get back into showbiz and scre*ing single and married women. He cannot and is unwilling to take any responsibility; we have seen that numerous times both in politics and his personal life. He's really not a very nice man. Worst PM of my lifetime for sure, probably of all time.
For me he is better than Brown, May, Cameron, Wilson, Heath, Callaghan and Major. He did something amazing: won the Brexit vote. Then something even amazinger: forced Brexit through by winning a genius majority
If Boris is so amazing for getting Brexit done then surely Cameron is amazinger for having the vote in the first place.
And as for Heath, who teed the whole thing up in 1973. Doesn't get more farsighted than that...
Still going with the "...very sorry for misjudgments which may have been made..." line. That is not an apology. Fuck him.
Leaving aside our own views, do we think that MPs who have been on the fence will have shifted either way? Really hard to tell, but the absence of anyone saying so is perhaps telling.
The public, it seems to me, are now bored by the detail, but have a settled, hostile view of the Government's position. Johnson started on the right note, but by the time he'd wheeled off into Brexit and vaccination and Jimmy Saville he was back in his natural rumbustious mode. I honestly think that for most people it simply doesn't work any more.
Blackford making it about him and is going to make the headlines and deflect the story
Andrew Mitchell withdraws support
Boris is on his way out
Blackford pointedly refusing to withdraw an allegation that BJ lied to the house may not be entirely bad politics.
Yes, I'm no fan of Blackford but he's played that perfectly from the SNP's point of view. Already looking past this immediate farce and doing the groundwork on what comes next.
The plain fact is that the prime minister most certainly did lie to the house. In circumstances like this it is better just to be straightforward and not mince your words.
I do wonder how many of the breaches of the rules - let alone the guidelines - were by Carrie and her friends.
I suspect quite a few. The PM could argue that he had a reasonable excuse to be in the office. Carrie none. Nor Lulu or other friends.
That may explain some of his behaviour. He simply cannot - or dare not - admit something which would put his wife in the frame.
FWIW, this is where my thinking has gone. Hence, the 'check the official diaries' comment earlier.
I've just had a horrible vision of BoJo stifling tears and saying that he has been acting all along to protect his wife and that he personally had no involvement in any wrongdoing..
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?
Let's see.
If the PM knew the law was being broken by either himself or his team and did nothing about it then he should resign. Whether he'd said to the House that the law wasn't being broken or not.
Lawmakers can not be lawbreakers.
Yep. And PMs cannot be liars to parliaments. Either should be enough to end him unless he and the Tory Party wish to take up residence in the gutter.
Indeed but you're trying to set up lying to Parliament as somehow a lower or easier bar to clear than proving knowledge of lawbreaking. It isn't.
If he knew about lawbreaking and did nothing he should resign. If he doesn't, he hasn't lied.
I find the latter implausible given the evidence we know about. But at the end of the day if its not shown he knew about lawbreaking, then its not shown he lied either.
The Lying To Parliament charge is not escaped by dint of the police deciding not to issue any tickets. That doesn't scan. But I agree it looks implausible he's clean on any metric.
Comments
He started with "hundreds" and then corrected it on the fly to "thousands".
I suspect anything that doesn't have a formal party invitation isn't a party in Carrie / Boris's world.
"If he won't correct the record today, there's nothing accidental, it's deliberate," Bryant says.
"I don't know what he's saying Mr Speaker," Johnson says in reply...
If people like Leon don't get this then they are sewerage.
Next 48 hours are critical. I expect Johnson to fly to Ukraine tonight or tomorrow morning to try to deflect attention. Tory MPs either see through it and act or they're stuck with Johnson until at least May and quite possibly 2024, when they will get a trouncing.
p.s. Sir Keir Starmer is looking prime ministerial. Dour and sometimes (really) dull but prime ministerial.
If not more.
And they don't really care how they get it.
They can sell a few party transgressions to workers. What they cannot sell is higher taxes forever, rocketing fuel bills and slow growth. Like it or not, that is part of the narrative here.
Good man.
I must have been incredibly unlucky on my last trip Too many posh places and then too many unlucky choices on the street
The food this time has been outstanding. Last night I had s Sri Lankan mud crab curry with this hybrid Med/Asian seafood broth to start
OMFFFFG. Cost £11. In an ultra high end place
I’ve also eaten off the street, very well, for literal pennies: all good, some sensational. I am a convert!
(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges
·
5m
Difficult to see how that could have gone worse for Boris. Historic moment.
This is one of the worst performances I’ve seen from a sitting Prime Minister in a major parliamentary debate.
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1488186685997342725
I'd say colours nailed irrevocably to the mast!
@Tissue_Price undecided, obv
Four major events coming up, one of which I've seen nobody else mention yet, that could be "make or break" for him.
1: The Police investigation. If he gets found guilty of breaking the law, that's surely terminal.
2: The full Sue Gray report. If he knew about law breaking at the time and did nothing, that's surely terminal on its own. It would also as kinabalu likes to remind us mean he lied to Parliament and that would be terminal, but I think that's moot anyway it'd be terminal either way.
3: The May elections. A hammering for the Tories and its terminal.
Finally I've yet to see anyone else mention it yet but
4: The Budget. Given the pressures on "cost of living", inflation etc and how febrile the mood is this surely must be "make or break" for both Boris and Sunak too.
https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1488188104632590343
Hang your heads in shame Conservatives.
Robert Peston
@Peston
·
2m
The PM is taking a huge personal risk in rejecting Tory MP demands to publish Sue Gray’s more definitive “full” report - because he is removing from them any incentive to delay their decisions to send in letters of no confidence in his leadership
Ed Morrish
@edmorrish
Once you've been told that he always calls female MPs "she", not "the right honourable", you can't help but notice it too.
Sue Gray was clear. There is no reason to delay remedial action.
Concession on tax and the cost of living.
The shameless and carelessness of this PM is frankly beyond words, but Aaron did try.
I'm told Boris Johnson's planned call with Russian President Vladimir Putin today has been cancelled.
When the Gray report landed the Russians were asked to shift the time - but they couldn't. So it's off...
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1488185055071678471
What would have been Blackford's punishment? Would we have got a By-election?
The issue then is what comes after and this (which I posted earlier https://ukandeu.ac.uk/dilemma-boris-conservatives/ ) shows the problem - there is no clear answer as to what person (or policies) you replace Boris with.
https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1488115500240588800
Tory MP Aaron Bell says only ten people could attend his grandmother's funeral in May 2020 - when there were two alleged lockdown-breaching gatherings at Downing Street
https://www.itv.com/news/2022-01-31/sue-gray-report-condemns-serious-failure-in-number-10-to-observe-rules https://twitter.com/itvnews/status/1488189476685893639/video/1
I suspect quite a few. The PM could argue that he had a reasonable excuse to be in the office. Carrie none. Nor Lulu or other friends.
That may explain some of his behaviour. He simply cannot - or dare not - admit something which would put his wife in the frame.
The Chinese are looking at the tories and thinking 'what a bunch of amateurs'
They adopted our lockdown policy, but they didn't read all the instructions. And now look.
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1488189620860899330
They were for Holocoust Memorial Day last Thursday.
Which might end up being his Jim Callaghan in Guadeloupe moment. Or not.
Is a lobotomy necessary to succeed in the Tory party?
October / November is too late. The Spending Review will need to be treated as a Budget and something will need to be there for energy bills as you said. If the energy bills issue isn't dealt with that will be it for Boris and Sunak.
https://twitter.com/itvnews/status/1488189476685893639?t=3Cojkr7HXyoC7B62HBwdRA&s=19
https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1488190396094111748
You....er....spent it on furlough chancellor. A furlough your leader didn't really believe in....but on the upside, most of it wasn't the target of fraud...
Blimey.
I might not be quite so scathing about her from now on.
That is powerful. Fair play to @Tissue_Price
That's 21 per event which potentially is fewer than one per person at each of those events.
Might there be even more not there yet?
That is not an apology. Fuck him.
Top Work!
The public, it seems to me, are now bored by the detail, but have a settled, hostile view of the Government's position. Johnson started on the right note, but by the time he'd wheeled off into Brexit and vaccination and Jimmy Saville he was back in his natural rumbustious mode. I honestly think that for most people it simply doesn't work any more.
Not for the country.
For every simmering Tory, there another patsy who clearly have lost any moral sensibility they once might have had.
My gut tells me that Boris’s response to Keir in particular was so sickeningly shameless and mendacious that it is has guaranteed a VONC.
But my head says, do not underestimate the utter cravenness of the Tory Party.
As an aside, Priti Patel looks very…sober, whereas Raab shared a little giggle with Boris earlier.
It was bloody awful. And this ****** [Redacted] in No. 10 has, as Aaron so powerfully said, made fools of us.