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Boris Johnson’s Partygate defence published. Do you believe it?

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Boris Johnson raises a glass at Lee Cain’s leaving party, surrounded by glasses and bottles of alcohol: he says he didn’t know it was a party at the time.

Boris Johnson wants us to believe he did not “intentionally or recklessly” mislead Parliament about the parties he attended in Downing Street while the UK was in Covid-19 lockdown. Why should we?

The inquiry into what happened has a threefold purpose. It intends to find out:

  • What Boris Johnson said to the House of Commons
  • Whether what he said was correct or whether it was misleading
  • How quickly and comprehensively any misleading statement to the House was corrected

We know he said no parties took place and that this was not true.

So the question is about how quick he was to correct his misleading statements.

He says he did this at the earliest opportunity, which was after Sue Grey’s report was published and a police investigation into the parties had ended (and he had been fined). He says he didn’t want to give a “half-baked account, before the facts had been fully and properly established”.

But he knew the facts, didn’t he – after having participated in what happened?

I’m listening to Politics Live while I’m writing this, and have just been reminded of his words at one such event – that it was “the least socially-distanced” event at the time. He knew the rules because he announced them. Is it credible for him to claim innocence?

This is what the inquiry will have to decide.

More booze on the table, and no social distancing: Boris Johnson reckons he didn’t realise this was a Christmas party at the time.

More sinister is Johnson’s attempt to impugn the motives of the Commons Privileges Committee, stating that he considers it to be “partisan” and not to have done all it could to ensure “fairness”.

This is nothing but a smear.

It makes him look like a guilty man, flailing, trying to find anything that could call a verdict against him into question.

In that sense, it seems highly ill-advised.

He doesn’t know what the inquiry’s decision will be. But now he has already turned public opinion against him.

Boris Johnson will give TELEVISED evidence to Partygate probe next week. Buy popcorn!

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Boris Johnson: his evidence to the Partygate inquiry might be quite short – after all, his inquisitors really have only to show him this image of himself at a party he said he never attended and ask him if he was there.

This is one to put in your diary:

Boris Johnson will give public evidence about whether he misled MPs over Partygate on [Wednesday] March 22, the Privileges Committee has confirmed.

The former prime minister will be questioned by the cross-party committee from 14:00 GMT in a televised session.

In an initial report published earlier this month it said Mr Johnson may have misled Parliament multiple times.

But Mr Johnson has rejected this and said he believes the process will “vindicate” him.

I’m looking forward to this one, very much!

In fact, I might have a ‘Partygate party’ and invite friends to watch it with me. Wanna come along?

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Time to reform the Honours system after Boris Johnson nominated father for knighthood?

Stanley Johnson: if he really did break his wife’s nose, why does son Boris think he deserves a knighthood?

Serial nepotist Boris Johnson has apparently disgraced the Honours system by nominating an alleged wife-beater for a knighthood: his own father, Stanley.

Johnson has previously made his brother Jo a peer, and unsubstantiated reports have previously suggested he wanted to give honours to his wife Carrie and sister Rachel.

The nomination has triggered a backlash – not just against the nomination but against the whole system of giving titles to individuals who are favoured by people who happen to have been in government. For example:

The allegations against Stanley Johnson are common knowledge…

… and the whole situation stinks of cronyism, as Wes Streeting (for once, rightly) asserted on BBC Breakfast:

Stanley Johnson was also once accused of “inappropriate touching” against Tory MP Caroline Nokes, and against political journalist Ailbhe Rea, in another example of the privilege that high-powered members of the Establishment have over the rest of us; if he had been you or me, the claim would have been “sexual assault”.

What happened about that?

Nevertheless, brace yourself for Johnson Senior to receive the honour.

After all, they gave a knighthood to Tony Blair and an MBE to Rachel Riley.

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ON THIS DATE IN 2022: Johnson sanctions hesitation lets Russians make a fortune

From March 6, 2022:

File this under: evidence that Boris Johnson is an asset of the Russian government.

Four Russian-born oligarchs have raked in $423 million in dividends on shares in Russian companies on the UK stock exchange, after the UK imposed sanctions on Russian firms.

How were Roman Abramovich, Alexander Abramov, Aleksandr Frolov and Alexander Nesis able to have the payouts from Evraz and Polymetal? Simple.

Those firms weren’t on Boris Johnson’s list of those to be sanctioned.

In total, the four named billionaires have received $4.5billion (£3.4billion) in payouts from the FTSE100-listed Russian commodities giants since the Tory government of the day failed to act decisively on them after Russia annexed the Crimea in 2014.

None of the four billionaires have been sanctioned either.

It seems Boris Johnson – and his government – deliberately pretended to be imposing heavy sanctions while doing nothing of the sort… wouldn’t you agree?

I’m still calling for comments on this new way of summarising articles, so please let me know what you think, in the comments.

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Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson LIED about community transmission of Covid-19 (EVIDENCE)

They really were lying: I never thought I’d get to use this image again.

Here’s some video evidence supporting what This Site said about Matt Hancock’s WhatsApp messages on Covid-19 testing in care homes during early 2020.

It shows both Hancock and then-prime minister Boris Johnson later denying that they knew anything about asymptomatic (the person with the disease didn’t have symptoms of it) transmission of Covid-19 at the time.

And then it demonstrates that both of them did know:

This supports what I said in my article – that they had been shown scientific evidence that people in care homes were being infected as early as February 2020 (in fact they received information from care homes about deaths there, as early as March 2) and simply ignored it.

Let’s hope this is picked up by the inquiry into the way the government handled the pandemic. We need to see major players in this fiasco receiving proportionate punishments.

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Evidence indicates Boris Johnson DID mislead Parliament over Downing Street parties

Boris Johnson (right): apparently he wasn’t at a Christmas Party in this image – notwithstanding the bottle of bubbly and the tinsel.

MPs investigating whether Boris Johnson knowingly misled Parliament over the so-called ‘Partygate’ scandal have said he may have done so on four occasions, and breaches of Covid-19 rules should have been “obvious” to him.

An initial report by the Commons’ Privileges Committee stated that Johnson “did not correct” misleading statements he made in the Commons at the “earliest opportunity”, as would have been expected from an MP.

He had “personal knowledge” about lockdown gatherings in No 10 which he could have disclosed to MPs, the committee said.

“Evidence strongly suggests that breaches of guidance would have been obvious to Mr Johnson at the time he was at the gatherings,” the report stated.

And there was “evidence that those who were advising Mr Johnson about what to say to the press and in the House were themselves struggling to contend that some gatherings were within the rules”.

Furthermore, the inquiry had been held up by a “reluctance” from Mr Johnson’s government “to provide unredacted evidence”. Some material “had been redacted even though it was already in the public domain”.

The unredacted disclosure of all relevant material was finally made by Rishi Sunak’s government on November 18 last year.

Johnson himself is still saying there is no evidence that he knowingly misled Parliament or failed to update Parliament in a timely manner. He’s sticking to his story that when he said the rules and guidance had been followed, that was his honest belief.

But he is also saying that the findings of an investigation by former Cabinet Office civil servant Sue Gray should not be trusted because she has now joined the Labour Party as its chief of staff. There is no evidence to support his claim that she was politically biased.

Johnson is due to give evidence to MPs later this month – and the session is likely to be televised.

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Boris Johnson comments on Rishi Sunak’s Northern Ireland deal

We were told Boris Johnsons would criticise parts of Rishi Sunak’s ‘Windsor Framework’ for Northern Ireland but would not oppose it outright.

We were told he had significant concerns and stood by his warning that the Government should keep the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill in place, and get rid of all legislation covering the movement of goods across EU borders.

And what did he say?

Here he is, speaking at a Global Soft Power summit:

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Boris Johnson is about to talk about Rishi Sunak’s NI deal – but who cares?

Bojob the Brexit Clown: Boris Johnson has nothing worthwhile or interesting to say about Rishi Sunak’s new framework for trade in Northern Ireland. He won’t even be amusing.

Some news outlets reckon Boris Johnson will break his silence on Rishi Sunak’s ‘Windsor Framework’ for Northern Ireland – but nobody seems to know what he’ll say.

And does it really matter?

Isn’t he yesterday’s man – flinging a dead cat around?

Some say he’ll criticise parts of the deal but will not oppose it outright; others say he has significant concerns and stands by his warning that the Government should keep the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill in place, and get rid of all legislation covering the movement of goods across EU borders.

I say he’ll generate only as much interest in his opinions as his client media can drum up – and it’s better for all of us if we don’t take any notice.

Source: Boris Johnson to finally break silence tomorrow to tear apart Sunak’s Brexit deal

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Can Brexiteer Steve Baker be trusted on Rishi Sunak’s new Northern Ireland deal?

Northern Ireland: what will Rishi Sunak’s replacement for the controversial Northern Ireland Protocol of Brexit achieve?

Arch-Brexiteer Steve Baker seems very happy about whatever deal Rishi Sunak has secured with the European Union over the movement of goods into and through Northern Ireland:

But can his word be trusted?

He’s got a particular viewpoint, very strongly asserted over the last eight years, more or less.

The Democratic Unionist Party, which is refusing to take its place in the Northern Irish Assembly at Stormont until a deal is struck that it supports, may feel differently. It is currently the second-largest party in that assembly and may wish to continue finding fault because the longer it stays out, the less time Sinn Fein – the largest party – will have as nominal leaders (NI is ruled under a power-sharing agreement but appearances seem to mean a lot to the DUP).

And Boris Johnson is lurking in the background in Westminster. He’s likely to be stirring up dissent against anything Rishi Sunak does because he wants to be prime minister again. And there are a lot of Tory MPs who reckon they owe him a debt for getting them into their Parliamentary seats.

Finally, there’s a question of democracy. The deal is likely to be debated in Parliament, but will there be a vote on it? If not, then can it really be heralded as the panacea Baker claims it is?

Why shouldn’t there be a vote? Is Sunak’s deal really that shaky?

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‘Partygate’ challenge against Met Police to be heard at High Court

Boris Johnson is pictured toasting departing Downing Street comms chief Lee Cain at a leaving party on November 13, 2020, that the prime minister told Parliament he never attended: the Metropolitan Police never fined him for attending this event. Why?

This is highly interesting!

The High Court will hear the first stage of a challenge against the Metropolitan Police over the force’s investigation into former prime minister Boris Johnson’s attendance at Number 10 parties during lockdown.

Mr Johnson received a fixed penalty notice (FPN) over a birthday party in the Cabinet Room in June 2020, but faced no further action over other gatherings covered by the Met’s Operation Hillman inquiry into events in No 10 and Whitehall.

Legal campaign group the Good Law Project (GLP) has launched a legal challenge, alongside former deputy assistant commissioner of the Met Lord Paddick, against the force over its investigation.

The GLP says the Met failed to send questionnaires to Mr Johnson, and has since failed to explain why, or how the force concluded his attendance at other events was lawful.

The group will ask Mr Justice Swift to grant permission for a judicial review of the Met’s handling of the investigation at a hearing in London at 10.30am on Wednesday.

It seems the issue is why Boris Johnson (and others?) seem to have avoided being penalised for attending other parties, besides those for which they have been fined:

Jo Maugham, GLP director, said: “We can’t understand – and the Met won’t disclose – how Boris Johnson dodged fines for going to parties that junior civil servants were fined for attending.

“But what it looks like is special treatment for the powerful.”

I’m hoping a judicial review is granted, and can happen before the Partygate inquiry takes place. I wonder how any decision here would impact on what happens there?

Source: First stage of ‘partygate’ challenge against Met Police to be heard at High Court | Evening Standard

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