Bojo

[Mr. Tea]

Issue is that we created him as lovable scamp and so it's hard to get rid of him cos it means self critique

Let's send a Terminator back in time to preemptively kill whichever programming exec decided it would be totes ledge bants to have him present HIGNFY

 

[catalog]

maybe true over there but make me chuckle thinking about US politics, where people have no issue with turning on a politician who's fallen out of favor.

Yeah I think trump is obviously even more ridiculous than boz in retrospect and a few people woke up and got in line? But it's also sort of the same trajectory in a sense. Get known on telly and then get in.

And generally, one good thing about America, sort of, is that you've a written constitution with checks and balances and while it never came to it in the end, the 8 years max rule is a good one.

 

[catalog]

I think that's true up to a point but I think that the change in him is so frightening and real that it ought to be possible (if one so wished) to avoid that self-critique by saying that he was that and now he has unpredictably changed into this, like a gremlin that got wet. So I feel one could reject this version without having to challenge themselves and admit that they were always wrong.

It's sort of too late though isn't it. Big test will be GE won't it, can he survive the next one. I can't see any viable tory leader til then, not at moment, not since sunak is dead man walking

 

[IdleRich]

Too late for what? Certainly the catastrophic damage of Brexit has been done and will take decades to begin to repair etc But I suppose just in any given situation however bleak there can slight improvements or whatever. So an utterly hellish awful world with Johnson in power could be slightly improved by him being defeated or dying or somehow ending up in a persistent vegetative state, even if was still a horrendous hell world in all other ways.

Basically I agree with you that massive amounts of pretty irreparable damage have been done so in that sense, yeah, it's too late.

 

[catalog]

My social barometer tells me there's a reaction to it, it's the covid stuff that people cannot take rather than anything else.

 

[IdleRich]

It's just incredible the Partygate stuff, the lies upon lies upon lies. It seems that the other day there was a meeting between Johnson and Sue Gray which the press found out about of course, and reported cos it looks incredibly dodgy. So "number 10" (whatever that is - is it Johnson or some people who work directly for him, or just some other guy who lives in the attic and does stuff occasionally, or does it mean simply the house itself? My guess it means "it was Boris Johnson but he doesn't want to say it was him") said that the meeting was instigated by Gray herself and so it was actually totally above board. Now it's only about three days later and the mysterious Number 10 has had to admit that that was an enormous whopper, and in fact they asked for the meeting. To me, that in itself is terrible - there is a saying about how it's not the original crime that does for you but the cover up, but Big Dog has tried to cover this up in so many different ways, and been repeatedly caught out doing it - he has lied to parliament, and constantly delayed things by saying he needs to investigate whether or not he attended a given "event" and whether or not it was a party - and so far suffered no particular penalty. And so he keeps doing it.

So this latest attempt to cover up his attempt to cover up his crimes is so blatant. It's not a stretching of the truth or a change of emphasis or any of the other euphemisms that mean "a not particularly big lie but still a way of cunningly saying or implying something that was different from the truth but allowing a just about plausible deniability when the truth is found out" - it's a huge one hundred and eighty degree opposite to the truth of the matter. They said "It's wasn't BJ it was Sue Gray" when the actual truth of the matter is "It was BJ it wasn't Sue Gray" - I feel that ought to be a bigger story than it is somehow. Especially if as the Guardian are now reporting he used the meeting to try to persuade her not to release the report.

"On Monday, Downing Street was forced to admit it had instigated a meeting between Gray and Johnson before the report’s publication – expected within days – having previously briefed ministers it had been at Gray’s request. During the meeting, Johnson apparently suggested to Gray that the report should no longer be published. He allegedly questioned whether there was “much point [publishing the report] now that it’s all out there”,

So what we're learning is that Johnson asked for a meeting with the author of an "independent" report into his wrongdoing and asked her not to bother releasing it cos what it contains is so trivial that it wouldn't affect anything. I mean, you or I might think that if a report was so trivial that it would make no difference whether or not it was released then there would be no need for the prime minister to secretly arrange a potentially very politically damaging secret meeting with the author to beg her not to release it - and then to lie about doing that. But obviously this is the kind of high level political thinking that I simply can't grasp.... well, either that or it's another enormous and disgusting lie and represents a disgraceful attempt by this scumbag to bring Sue Gray on to the Save Big Dog team and suppress her report.

Such a pathetic and crude attempt that he ought to be shamed into resigning right away if only cos of his clear ineptitude.

 

[IdleRich]

Oh and now - as Cummings recently predicted - photos from the events have started to appear. ITV got one tonight which was apparently from Nov 2020 when (I think I read today) that you were not allowed more than two people in a room (is that right?). It was a leaving do which they are saying Johnson actually suggested and made happen and it shows a load of people in a room, Johnson looking somewhat the worse for wear (though in his defence he could reasonably argue that he always looks as though he has woken up in ditch after a three day bender) raising a glass in toast, standing by a table groaning under the weight of various bottles of various types of booze - oh and also his ministerial red box, presumably containing loads of top secret documents. Johnson had to self-isolate a couple of days later.

This was an event which the Met have investigated and for which multiple people received fines but for which Johnson himself did not. Some are even suggesting that the Met have seen this photograph. If that's true and the Met have seen a photo of Johnson clearly smashing the law, at a party which he organised and loads of attendees were fined for simply being at, then it calls into question their whole investigation - and immediately raises the strong possibility that the reason he has been fined only once was political, rather than down to his lack of criminal actions.

Really Johnson's people have handled this so badly - repeatedly lying and being caught out, forcing lowlier people to resign for lesser crimes, continually prevaricating and saying they he needs to investigate whether or not he was at a party, making ludicrous excuses - it was a work event, he was ambushed by a cake, he didn't know the rules he made and was on telly every day emphasising how important it was that everyone followed them - and, perhaps worst of all demanding that Starmer resigning if he broke the law and being utterly embarrassed by his agreement as they realised that that would clearly mean that Johnson had to go too.

As it stands now I think that anyone with a brain now understands that Johnson clearly broke the laws he introduced, again and again, at the very times he was insisting how important it was that everyone else followed them - and then repeatedly lied to the country, the parliament and the police about doing so, sacrificing underlings to try and protect himself. The facts - despite all the attempts to hide them - are pretty well established, it's now simply a matter of whether or not you care about that or not... whether you "Back Boris".

 

[IdleRich]

Quite interesting to see the top rated comments in the Daily Mail comment section relating to this event





And, as you might expect, The Mail have seen the way that the wind is blowing on this one and their front page treats the day's biggest story accordingly

 

[IdleRich]

I guess when he said he was sickened it must have been an oblique reference to potentially being made ill with covid and having to self-isolate - which clearly made him furious.

 

[IdleRich]

Johnson was asked in December last year by the MP Catherine West: “Can the prime minister tell the house whether there was a party in Downing Street on 13 November.” Johnson replied at the time: “Mr Speaker, no. But I’m sure that whatever happened, the guidance was followed and the rules were followed at all times.”

Lies and lies and lies. The rule of course is that if any minister knowingly misleads parliament then they are expected to resign. The problem is that there is no way of enforcing the rule.

 

[shakahislop]

The big story that the MSM are totally ignoring is that these photos clearly show BJ partying with blurry ghosts. I've always thought that he talked to the dead

 

[Mr. Tea]

Lies and lies and lies. The rule of course is that if any minister knowingly misleads parliament then they are expected to resign. The problem is that there is no way of enforcing the rule.

And yet accusing another MP of lying - even when it's very clearly a justified accusation - is a potentially disciplinary offence. Which is just completely nuts, isn't it?

 

[IdleRich]

Conservative MP John Baron said he did not believe Mr Johnson's claims that he was unaware of the scale of lockdown boozing in Downing Street laid bare in the dossier.

"Therefore, his repeated assurances in Parliament that there was no rule-breaking is simply not credible," he said.

In a statement on his website, the Basildon and Billericay MP said: "Having always said I would consider all the available evidence before deciding, I'm afraid the Prime Minister no longer enjoys my support - I can no longer give him the benefit of the doubt."

The Brexiteer backbencher tore into the "shameful pattern of misbehaviour during the pandemic as the rest of us kept to the Covid regulations" in No10 and Whitehall, adding: "Those responsible for setting the rules have a special duty to adhere to them."

Apparently that makes 21 Tories calling him to fall on his sword.

 

[version]

Apparently that makes 21 Tories calling him to fall on his sword.

How many of them have written to the 1922 committee rather than just urging a bloke they know will never resign to 'do the right thing'?

 

[IdleRich]

I dunno, would assume that if you go public asking him to resign then you submit the letter or else you're exposing yourself as an enemy but not striking the blow that goes with it, a kind of worst of both worlds scenario.

 

[version]

Good point.

My thinking was that some of them might see it as an opportunity to be seen making a principled stand without actually making a decisive move and ousting him. They get a little PR boost and nothing really changes.

 

[IdleRich]

Of course I could be wrong.

 

[DannyL]

The letters are nearly there apparently but if it's taking this long to get them together seems likely he'd win a no confidence vote anyway

 

[IdleRich]

Now Johnson is changing the ministerial code so you don't have to resign if you break it - as he did. Brilliant.

 

[IdleRich]

Boris Johnson is changing the rules to let ministers avoid resigning if they break the ministerial code, allowing them to apologise or temporarily lose their pay instead.

The prime minister, who is facing claims of breaching the code, published a policy statement on Friday saying it is “disproportionate to expect that any breach, however minor, should lead automatically to resignation or dismissal”.
A new version of the ministerial code has been published, suggesting that in future ministers are likely to face making a “public apology, remedial action, or removal of ministerial salary for a period” if they retain the confidence of the prime minister.

One of the reasons for changing the rules is to “avoid incentives for trivial or vexatious complaints, which may be made for partisan reasons”, it says after a slew of complaints about ministers’ conduct from Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

The change comes as Johnson faces his own investigation by the privileges committee into whether he misled parliament by claiming there were no parties in No 10 during lockdown and that the rules were followed at all times.