When Will It All Go Wrong For The Tories/ Johnson?

[Cowley]

Just a reminder that discussions about Labour where possible need to be in this thread:

Where did it all go wrong for Labour?

A only slightly tongue in cheek plagiarisation of @Butts thread on the Lib Dems May's elections for various offices in the whole of Great Britain, saw this once great Party standing on the edge of the abyss and becoming if it is not already an irrelevance. Behind SNP and Tories in Scotland...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[DelayRepay]

Here we go again - Boris thinks he's gotten away and out come the leakers... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61557064

That's inevitable. I'm not sure whether Sue Gray is going to include photos in her report or not, but one way or another we'll get to see them all.

 

[jfollows]

From 8 December 2021:

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2021-12-08/debates/45C3B261-14F7-4DDC-A7D8-EB8A76097CFB/Engagements

Catherine West
(Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)

Q6. Will the Prime Minister tell the House whether there was a party in Downing Street on 13 November? (904648)

The Prime Minister

No, but I am sure that whatever happened, the guidance was followed and the rules were followed at all times.

Picture from 13 November 2020 at https://www.itv.com/news/2022-05-23...nking-at-downing-street-party-during-lockdown

He's completely without shame or any sort of conscience.

 

[ainsworth74]

I'm curious as to why the Met fined people for attending that party but didn't fine Boris for it. He certainly looks to be as involved in proceedings as everyone else.

 

[jfollows]

I'm curious as to why the Met fined people for attending that party but didn't fine Boris for it. He certainly looks to be as involved in proceedings as everyone else.

I suggest it's because the Met is institutionally incompetent, led by donkeys, and applies different standards to 10 Downing Street as it does to ordinary people like you or me.

However, in a more conciliatory tone, I think the Met simply mis-judged the mood and thought that it would be better to pursue and punish minor garden parties from normal people in suburbia than to look at people in power. In this it made the wrong call, and only recently came to understand that. The Met had essentially to be bullied into doing its job in the face of public opinion, and had earlier made totally the wrong call. Policing needs to apply the same law to everyone, and in this case - initially - it didn't.

 

[DelayRepay]

I'm curious as to why the Met fined people for attending that party but didn't fine Boris for it. He certainly looks to be as involved in proceedings as everyone else.

It said on the radio that there were two parties at Downing Street on that date, and it is not known whether the police fines were issued for this party, the other party, or both parties.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

It said on the radio that there were two parties at Downing Street on that date, and it is not known whether the police fines were issued for this party, the other party, or both parties.

Its all irrelevant anyhow the Tory MPs just know BoJo did wrong but they accept as lets be honest Tories are only interested in themselves.

 

[jfollows]

Jeremy Hunt setting out his stall:
"So I think this is the week where we are reminding people that politicians are servants of the people."
He's not wrong, mind you.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Jeremy Hunt setting out his stall:
"So I think this is the week where we are reminding people that politicians are servants of the people."
He's not wrong, mind you.

The same servant that left us woefully prepared for Covid.

 

[Yew]

40.0% was a good result for Labour, but definitely not it's 2nd highest share in history. As I recall, Labour got well above 40% in every election between 1945 and 1970, and also in 1997 and 2001. It was the highest vote share Labour has ever achieved since 2001 though.

Apologies, you are correct, I misremembered the largest increase in vote share.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I'm curious as to why the Met fined people for attending that party but didn't fine Boris for it. He certainly looks to be as involved in proceedings as everyone else.

It's intriguing. From what I've read, the met were probably only fining people where they were confident that the fines would hold up in a court case, if anyone decided to challenge their own fine. I would therefore speculate that it may have something to do with Boris actually living there, combined with an inability to prove that he had knowingly arranged the events in question. It's also possible that the people fined had provided evidence that incriminated themselves in their submissions to Sue Gray's investigation, or in whatever evidence they supplied to the Met, and Boris didn't.

 

[nw1]

However, in a more conciliatory tone, I think the Met simply mis-judged the mood and thought that it would be better to pursue and punish minor garden parties from normal people in suburbia than to look at people in power.

And worse (though, and to make this absolutely clear, this was not the Met, but another police force) fining people drinking coffee outside in a quiet rural location with someone else in their 'bubble'. That was inexcusable police abuse of power.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I suggest it's because the Met is institutionally incompetent, led by donkeys, and applies different standards to 10 Downing Street as it does to ordinary people like you or me.

However, in a more conciliatory tone, I think the Met simply mis-judged the mood and thought that it would be better to pursue and punish minor garden parties from normal people in suburbia than to look at people in power. In this it made the wrong call, and only recently came to understand that. The Met had essentially to be bullied into doing its job in the face of public opinion, and had earlier made totally the wrong call. Policing needs to apply the same law to everyone, and in this case - initially - it didn't.

Blimey, how cynical can you get? You don't think, perhaps, that it's better to look for the obvious explanations (such as what kind of evidence was available to the police) before just blindly making out that an entire police force is corrupt because you, from a position of being an outsider who - like the rest of us - has no access to any of the evidence other than what is reported in the media - don't like the verdicts that those trained police officers who do have access to the evidence decided on?

 

[Kite159]

Man has drink with people he works with daily to say goodbye to someone leaving shocker!

The media just can't forgive him for not calling another lockdown earlier in the year to boost their viewing figures for the rubbish they had lined up on the TV.

 

[brad465]

Man has drink with people he works with daily to say goodbye to someone leaving shocker!

The media just can't forgive him for not calling another lockdown earlier in the year to boost their viewing figures for the rubbish they had lined up on the TV.

I think this is more one or a combination of individuals leaking stuff to the media to get revenge on Johnson for throwing them under a bus, Cummings being the most obvious suspect.

 

[jfollows]

Blimey, how cynical can you get? You don't think, perhaps, that it's better to look for the obvious explanations (such as what kind of evidence was available to the police) before just blindly making out that an entire police force is corrupt because you, from a position of being an outsider who - like the rest of us - has no access to any of the evidence other than what is reported in the media - don't like the verdicts that those trained police officers who do have access to the evidence decided on?

Yes, to most of that but - just to be clear - I said "incompetent" and I didn't say "corrupt".

 

[Kite159]

I think this is more one or a combination of individuals leaking stuff to the media to get revenge on Johnson for throwing them under a bus, Cummings being the most obvious suspect.

Or other senior civil servants with an axe to grind.

Hope they got legal advice before breaching the official secrets act with leaking those photos.

Boris should resign, not over drinks or cake, but due to the overall handling of the last couple years. Retire somewhere abroad before returning to the after dinner speech market. Although there is nobody who stands out as being a replacement, they need to clear the swamp of all the deadwood career politicians

 

[bspahh]

It's intriguing. From what I've read, the met were probably only fining people where they were confident that the fines would hold up in a court case, if anyone decided to challenge their own fine. I would therefore speculate that it may have something to do with Boris actually living there, combined with an inability to prove that he had knowingly arranged the events in question. It's also possible that the people fined had provided evidence that incriminated themselves in their submissions to Sue Gray's investigation, or in whatever evidence they supplied to the Met, and Boris didn't.

David Allen Green wrote in his blog:

It would appear that senior Downing Street figures escaped penalties while junior staff incurred them.

And it seems to be the situation that this discrepancy may be because senior figures had the the benefit of deft legal advice in how to complete (and not complete) the questionnaires, while more junior staff provided answers that had not had the benefit of such advice.

This sort of ‘getting off on a technicality’ would – if it were about migrants or other marginalised group, or loud protesters – be met by emphatic criticism from populist politicians and the tabloid press.

But as it is the leaders of a populist government, then there is hardly a word.

There is nothing wrong with such senior figures having access to competent legal advice.

The issue is not that some have access to good lawyers, but that not everyone does.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 May 2022 ==

Man has drink with people he works with daily to say goodbye to someone leaving shocker!

The shocker is when those drinks broke the law, and the then man states in Parliament that "all guidance was followed completely in No 10".

 

[dosxuk]

Man has drink with people he works with daily to say goodbye to someone leaving shocker!

You seem to have missed the bits about it being illegal to do so at the time, under rules decided by the people present, promoted to the public by one of them, who then went on to lie about it having happened, and tested positive for covid two days later.

 

[Cdd89]

Given the lack of a FPN, this becomes a moral issue, and I’m interested in where others morally draw the line between reasonable goodbye to a colleague and immoral social gathering.

My feeling is that line is drawn once the bottles of booze come out, making this dubious in my eyes. (This is the same problem I have with Starmer’s curry).

 

[daodao]

=============================

Someone called Simon Clarke MP, apparently Chief Secretary to the Treasury, has tried to imply that "extraordinary pressure" caused people in Downing Street to break the law. He goes on to say "that in no way diminishes the seriousness of what happened" but that's clearly what he's trying to do by saying what he has said.

Do these people realise that they're inhabiting a bubble in Westminster and that a lot of us hold them in contempt for their hypocrisy and entitlement?

Maybe they don't care, if they don't rely on my vote to get re-elected then clearly they don't, but it's a continuing insult to those who obeyed the law rigorously and had real jobs which make the jobs of politicians pale into banality.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 May 2022 ==

=============================

All this attention paid to Bojo's highjinks is a fuss about trivialities, and much ado about nothing very much. It is a distraction from really important issues such as stagflation, the imminent rail strike and monkeypox.

Bojo won a substantial majority at the last GE, so he had popular support then, and the time for the public to have their say on how well he has run the country is probably going to be in 2024. I don't expect the Tories to be defeated then, given the split opposition and the lack of decent leadership in the main opposition party (even compared to 2017).

 

[Shrop]

Given the lack of a FPN, this becomes a moral issue, and I’m interested in where others morally draw the line between reasonable goodbye to a colleague and immoral social gathering.

My feeling is that line is drawn once the bottles of booze come out, making this dubious in my eyes. (This is the same problem I have with Starmer’s curry).

Of course there are morals involved, that's true of almost everyone in various aspects of life, but when do morals trump laws? When you think you can get away with it perhaps?
Consider that almost everyone is a willing lawbreaker when they drive for example, because breaking speed limits is viewed by almost everyone as a matter of law about which they have the personal right to decide its importance. So they use their personal morals to decide whether 75mph or 80mph is reasonable on a motorway (for example), even if it means slamming on the brakes when they see a police car, which then risks the driver behind running into them, since most drivers disobey the two second rule.
But should we run our lives on morals when everyone has different values? Should we allow ourselves to break laws if we believe we can get away with it? I think trying to answer this will almost always lead to more questions than answers.

 

[dosxuk]

All this attention paid to Bojo's highjinks is a fuss about trivialities, and much ado about nothing very much. It is a distraction from really important issues such as stagflation, the imminent rail strike and monkeypox.

No, it's about whether we can trust a word that comes out of the mouth of the Prime Minister, whether Government operates a one-rule-for-us scheme and whether anyone should be allowed to get away with lying to Parliament.

If we can't trust him to do the right thing in the middle of a national crisis, running a massive cover up operation to try and stop anyone finding out about it; how can we trust him with any of the other things you say are really important?

Many many people would put their inability to see friends and family at times of need, up to and including death, under threat of criminal conviction, as more important than a spat between the government and the rail unions.

 

[jon0844]

Maybe this thread should just be when does it all go wrong for Johnson, because at some point the party must want rid.

Look at the distancing of the main party and the 'local' Tory candidates at the council elections.

They want to blame the EU, Russia and the pandemic for our problems and continue to be our saviour, and Boris keeps messing everything up for them.

Keeping Boris at the helm might seal their fate at the next general election, which sort of means that maybe he should decide to stay!

 

[jfollows]

For me, it's not about breaking the law that's the fundamental problem; as others have also said it's because he then lies about it. I've had points on my license for speeding, but I didn't lie about it when I was caught because I know that would only make things worse. But Boris's life experience seems to have taught him that it's worth lying to avoid punishment, and he's already been sacked twice for this. It is fundamentally what makes him unfit to be my prime minister, and I have always thought so, and I'd like to think that even if I wanted to leave the EU I'd have thought so, but too many people were prepared to overlook his rampant fabrications in the eye of the "prize" of leaving the EU which his predecessor was unable to accomplish.

If he'd come clean at the start we'd have moved on by now. The crime wasn't major, although it was hypocritical to be found out doing things the rest of us didn't do, and I think at the time his instinct was to lie to avoid any charges of this. This decision has mainly unravelled although he still seems to be "getting away with it"; I feel that his actions have blighted the chances of his party for the foreseeable future but I could be wrong since I'm biased to loathe the man and hold him in contempt.

 

[Busaholic]

For me, it's not about breaking the law that's the fundamental problem; as others have also said it's because he then lies about it. I've had points on my license for speeding, but I didn't lie about it when I was caught because I know that would only make things worse.

Let's not forget that a high-profile politician received a three month prison sentence for maintaining just such a lie until the morning of his court appearance. If he'd secured a few more votes when the Lib Dems were electing a new leader, he'd probably have been Deputy Prime Minister at the time too! Oh, and he was willing to persuade another person, namely his then wife, to take the rap, to the extent that she too earned a prison sentence for collusion.

 

[nw1]

Man has drink with people he works with daily to say goodbye to someone leaving shocker!

The media just can't forgive him for not calling another lockdown earlier in the year to boost their viewing figures for the rubbish they had lined up on the TV.

While we were all in lockdown. That's the problem. Yes, the actual act wasn't exactly a hanging offence - and if they hadn't imposed a lockdown in November 2020, I doubt anyone would care.

If any of us had drinks with someone we worked with during November 2020, we'd probably be carted off by the police, fined and labelled an irresponsible Covid-spreader. One rule for one, one rule for another.

It really is time to stop making excuses for politicians (not just Johnson, but anyone - I want to make that clear) who impose rules on us and then do not follow those rules themselves.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 May 2022 ==

Let's not forget that a high-profile politician received a three month prison sentence for maintaining just such a lie until the morning of his court appearance. If he'd secured a few more votes when the Lib Dems were electing a new leader, he'd probably have been Deputy Prime Minister at the time too! Oh, and he was willing to persuade another person, namely his then wife, to take the rap, to the extent that she too earned a prison sentence for collusion.

Yes, it's interesting that, thanks to the letter of the law, the book was thrown at Huhne but little has happened with Johnson. Both seem morally (if not legally) similar to me, committed a minor criminal act and then tried to cover it up - so in both cases it could be argued that it was the dishonesty and lack of integrity that was the issue, not the original offence.

 

[Howardh]

He can bend and stretch the rulse as much as he likes, but he's guilty of crass lack of empathy. Example - a funeral is a "leaving do"; how many were restricted, and could you have a wake afterwards? Think the answer to the latter was "no" - maybe small members of the family bubble at home. Therefore could you have a "party" at work after hours to wave someone off?

Well, they made the rules, if they were so unclear then those making the rules need to resign due to sheer incompetence, and all those fined under similar circumstances given their fines back and record wiped clean.

 

[MattRat]

Slighty off topic, but can someone explain to me where all these Johnson simpathizers are coming from? Sunak and his wife I could maybe understand, as when was it suddenly ok for a man to control a woman's finances again, but Johnson? There's no reason to defend Johnson at all, someone else could easily do his job better than him, why the attachment?

 

[jfollows]

Slighty off topic, but can someone explain to me where all these Johnson simpathizers are coming from? Sunak and his wife I could maybe understand, as when was it suddenly ok for a man to control a woman's finances again, but Johnson? There's no reason to defend Johnson at all, someone else could easily do his job better than him, why the attachment?

I think that Conservative MPs, plus party members, decided that Boris was an asset to get them to win the 2019 election, and I can't disagree with that. However the primary competition was a party not led in any sensible way by a rancid old Trot, so the question his supporters are now asking themselves is whether or not he's still an electoral asset (which will enable many of them to retain their seats) in the face of a better opposition and a poor view of him by the electorate.
Ultimately it's the people who voted Conservative because of Boris in 2019 who won't now do so that matters - and is that a large a significant number of people or not? If it's just whingers like me who never voted for Boris and never would, then it's not important!