Conor Burns, the formerly-Tory MP who was sacked from the government and suspended from the Conservative whip after an alleged altercation with another man’s thigh, was in line for elevation to the House of Lords by Boris Johnson, it seems.
The reason?
Well, we don’t know for sure – but the smart money says it’s because he was the one who burst in on Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds (as she was then) while he was allegedly (again) having an extra-marital canoodle with her in a government office, some years ago.
Burns didn’t spill the beans on this one, although details emerged later.
It’s a deeply dodgy reason for sending anyone to the Upper Chamber of Parliament – especially somebody who may have a record of sexual inappropriateness.
Yes indeed: sordid.
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Carrie Johnson: it seems she demanded that The Times keep its big mouth shut but if she had done that, there might not have been a story in the first place.
Remember Carriegate? The claim that a Times story about Boris Johnson trying to get his then-lover (now wife) Carrie Symonds (as was) a high-paying Foreign Office job, back when he was Foreign Secretary, was removed from the paper and deleted from the World Wide Web because of interference from Downing Street?
Now, Private Eye has claimed that the woman now known as Mrs Johnson had demanded the story’s removal out of a fear that the more salacious details of her relationship with Johnson would be trotted out.
(This is probably baseless; The Times may be a Murdoch rag but it isn’t The Sun or the News of the World.)
But now we know anyway, because Private Eye has told us that another member of Parliament walked in on Johnson and (now) Johnson just as she was attending to his important little places in an intimate way:
The Friday night attack of the ab-dabs was caused by a baseless fear that the Times might be more specific about the compromising situation [those of a timid disposition should look away now] by adding that the MP walked in while Carrie was giving Boris oral sex on the sofa.”
This raises serious questions:
Yes, blackmail – because the MP who burst in on such an act could demand elevation in return for his silence. Some have suggested that Gavin (now Lord) Williamson may have been that person, because he has subsequently done very well for himself despite being utterly incompetent;
Presumably, former chief whip Gavin Williamson got his ridiculous knighthood for keeping schtum about the extra-marital blow job that is now public knowledge anyway. What an utterly appalling shambles our country has become.
There are also concerns about misconduct in public office.
Firstly, it may be misconduct if the sex act “renders the public office holder vulnerable to misjudgement” – such as trying to get the provider of said act a job worth more than £100,000 a year? Note that Johnson has ‘form’ in this respect as he funnelled more than £100K to Jennifer Arcuri, who alleges a similar relationship with him.
Alternatively, if the act occurred when the public office holder was “on duty” – that dereliction of duty/unprofessionalism attends the conduct and it could be seen to undermine trust in the office holder.
It’s alleged that Johnson was interrupted in his office by a colleague wishing to discuss work with him, and could have easily been interrupted by any number of other foreign office officials or government staff.
They may have used it as kompromat – compromising information collected for use in blackmailing, discrediting, or manipulating someone, typically for political purposes – as has been (humorously?) suggested of Gavin Williamson. Junior or female staff may have seen it as sexual harassment.
So, in withdrawing the article, it seems The Times did us all a favour and revealed that the man who is now our prime minister may have casually – and possibly habitually – put himself in the kind of compromising situations that may endanger the security of the United Kingdom.
As Yorkshire Bylinessuggests, this is a matter for investigation – possibly by the Metropolitan Police, possibly by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner. Personally, I would add that the security services might also wish to become involved.
Whoever takes in the task (if anyone does in Johnson’s corrupt UK dystopia), This Writer can only agree with the final sentiment of the Bylines piece:
Let’s hope for their sake there’s no photographic evidence.
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The UK’s news sites were full of stories saying Boris Johnson had avoided a question on whether he tried to give his now-wife Carrie a Foreign Office job, at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday (June 22).
This is not true.
Here’s what happened:
Labour MP Chris Elmore asked Johnson: “Has he ever considered the appointment of his current spouse to a government post or to any organisation in the working of the royal households? Be honest, prime minister, yes or no?”
To this, Johnson replied: “I know why the party opposite wants to talk about nonexistent jobs, in the media.”
He was very clearly denying that he had tried to get Mrs Johnson a job by saying that no such job existed.
If, in the future, evidence shows that he did try to get her into a job – that one did, in fact, exist – then he will have lied to Parliament again.
This Writer hopes Parliament’s Privileges committee is paying careful attention and asks the right questions.
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Why is Boris Johnson’s government so determined to be dishonest all the time?
Yesterday (June 20), Downing Street was adamantly refusing to comment on whether the government had intervened to force The Times to drop its damning story about Boris Johnson wanting to hire then-Carrie Symonds into the Foreign Office for £100,000.
Now the prime minister’s office has given up its pretence and
confirmed it contacted the newspaper on Friday night and asked it to retract the story.
But:
Contrary to online speculation, there is no superinjunction or specific legal issue preventing reporting of the story.
Handy, that – it means those of us who have been repeating the story left, right and centre won’t face reprisals for doing so.
But that leaves us asking: what was the point?
This Site and others have already mentioned the so-called “Streisand Effect”, whereby efforts to remove a story from the Internet only increase public interest in it.
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The claim is that Boris Johnson tried to hire his current wife as his chief of staff – with a £100,000-a-year salary – while he was foreign secretary and married to somebody else.
It said the idea had fallen apart when his closest advisers learned of it.
It was published as a news story in The Times, early on Saturday – but was suddenly withdrawn amid rumours of a high-level government intervention.
A MailOnline rewrite has also been removed without explanation, and news aggregation sites have deleted their copies of this article.
But if Boris Johnson – or any of his aides – had hoped to suppress the story, they may now be reeling from the discovery that their heavy-handedness has had the opposite effect.
It is apparently known as The Streisand Effect: efforts to delete a story from the internet make the public much more interested in it.
So while
a No 10 source also said the story was untrue – and suggested it was sexist.
“This is a grubby, discredited story turned down by most reputable media outlets because it isn’t true. The facts speak for themselves.”
and the report’s original author, Simon Walters
told the Guardian: “I stand by the story. I went to all the relevant people over two days. Nobody offered me an on-the-record denial and Downing St didn’t deny it off the record either,”
the public are having a barrel of fun at the expense of the prime minister – and his wife:
It is four years since I worked for The Times. Sometimes I hear stuff … but I don't know why this story on Carrie Johnson was cut after being published in early editions. Yet cut it was. How are readers supposed to trust a paper that does this without explaining why? pic.twitter.com/8W65XHkw5m
— Katherine O'Donnell (@kathy__odonnell) June 19, 2022
Boris and Carrie Johnson Forced the Media to Memory Hole an Article About Their Latest Scandal. Now, It's Trending, And It May Bring His Government Down. https://t.co/7zosLOKlv3
Just look up #Carriegate on Twitter and you’ll see a lot of people having a lot of fun.
And of course the story raises questions that deserve answers.
If Johnson really did try to install the woman who was his then-lover into a high-paying job at his government department (which seems a common practice, looking at someone whose name sounds like Hat Mancock) while he was married to someone else, what does that say about his morals?
That’s why This Writer likes the tweet that suggests Johnson should just go the whole hog and appoint her as his new ethics advisor.
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Next time I get to “have a drink” – you know, “after a busy working day” – it’s going to be a bacchanalian orgy. Who’s up for it?
(Make sure you’re Covid-tested first, mind. The Tories might be incapable of keeping us safe from Covid-19, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t safeguard ourselves.)
Clearly we deserve it, and there’s no moral authority that Johnson, his government or his police can exert on us because the first two have clearly been partying in defiance of their own rules since the start of the very first Covid-19 lockdown, and the cops – by refusing to investigate/arrest/prosecute them – have shown us they are in the pockets of the politicians.
We know the Tories have been partying it up since at least May 2020 because – after Johnson insisted that he had followed all his own rules, despite evidence of him participating in rule-busting parties last December – a photo has now emerged of him at a rule-busting party in May 2020 – seven months earlier.
Clearly he and the other Tories have been at it all the time.
The image in question is at the top of the article – I’m using a version that has been labelled with the names of some of the participants so we can all see that Johnson was there with his wife Carrie and son Wilfred, Dominic Cummings (this was before they fell out), Matt Hancock and James Slack (then an advisor to the prime minister and now deputy editor of The Sun).
Challenged to justify the scene in the image, Tory government figures couldn’t even get their story straight.
Johnson himself claimed, “Those were people at work, talking about work.”
If it was a work meeting, where were the laptop computers? Where were the notepads and pens? Can you see a whiteboard anywhere? I can’t!
I can see wine, cheese, Johnson’s wife and his baby son.
"It was a work meeting" says Number Ten, forgetting that the video of them laughing and saying that was the excuse they'd use if it ever became public has already been made public.
But Dominic Raab had already claimed that the image was taken after any work had been done. He told BBC Breakfast: “Sometimes after a busy working day people have a drink – that was not against the regulations.”
He was lying; it was. In that same lockdown a care worker who had just finished her shift was fined £200 for sitting alone in her car at a local beauty spot (according to Nadia Whittome).
There’s also this:
Remember those two women that got arrested for sitting on a bench drinking their coffees? Because technically stopping to eat or drink was a picnic ✌🏼
1. A party in the No.10 garden with absolutely no social distancing.
2. Matt Hancock – "You can meet one other person from outside your household in an outdoor public place, but please keep 2 metres apart" pic.twitter.com/e4vGE83xZ8
And Adil Ray made mincemeat of Raab on ITV’s Good Morning Britain:
.@adilray and @CharlotteHawkns challenge Deputy PM @DominicRaab over the photo showing Boris Johnson alongside his wife Carrie and up to 17 staff relaxing and drinking in the Downing Street garden during lockdown in May last year.
Crucially, Johnson was in the wrong, no matter which story was right:
If this was an official government business meeting, then he had brought his wife – an unforgivable breach of the Official Secrets Act.
If it was a social gathering – in May 2020 – then it was a breach of the lockdown Johnson had imposed on the whole of the UK at that time.
Either way, Johnson and Raab both lied – Johnson about what was going on, Raab about the conditions under which it was happening:
Nobody in the right mind would believe that photo shows a 'staff meeting'. But the government decided to lie anyway. What utter contempt they must hold us in.
It would be entirely appropriate to humiliate Johnson and Raab (and all the other Tory liars and rule-breakers who have been endangering us all and laughing about it) with stories of people who have suffered and died while following the demands that they ignored:
May 2020. A then student nurse asked to work on a COVID HDU. I watched people younger than myself die. I watched my friends dad die. I remember my whole bay of patients died, a brand new nurse, seen more deaths than most see in 10 years. How was the party @BorisJohnson? pic.twitter.com/dNJXgbFs7A
If a group of NHS staff were photographed having a glass of wine after their shift, we would have been crucified. We weren’t even allowed to make a tik tok during a break without cries of how very dare you. #OneRuleForThem#ToriesPartiedWhilePeopleDied#JohnsonOut
At the moment that photo of No 10 was taken, I was in a ward where 42% of us were dying. The PPE was not fit for purpose, some of it was 2nd hand and had blood on it. At the outset, I couldn't get tested anywhere. First half of 2020 was a govt-led crime.
Personally, I think a better humiliation is humour; we should be mocking these entitled Tories who think they’re better than us but whose behaviour falls so far below our own standard.
Dominic Raab now arguing that the photo of the Downing St garden party shows it isn't a party because everybody is wearing a suit.
Oh wait – that might have actually been a serious claim. Okay – try these:
Ordering in plenty of wine and spirits for a work meeting today.
— Paul Templeman #3point5percent #FBPE (@PaulTempleman6) December 20, 2021
BREAKING: Boris Johnson has apologised for not turning up to yesterday's Cobra meeting, but he confirmed the karaoke night in the conference room next door was fucking brilliant x
I will shortly be introducing Step 2 restrictions: -only go into the office if wine is available -no socialising without cheese -if you must go to work, take your wife and baby -hairdressers are open, but please comb your hair with a balloon instead#No10#DowningStreetParties
That’s right. Johnson has betrayed us and none of us – not even Tory voters! – can afford to give him even the slightest bit of trust.
He has to go.
And he needs to take his entire cabinet with him because they’re still backing him to the hilt and that means we can’t trust them either.
ONE MORE THING:
Don't forget that there are dozens of people in politics and the media who knew all about the lockdown-busting Tory parties at the time, but they deliberately kept it secret.
They're only releasing the details and the pictures now because it aligns with their purposes.
This is absolutely right. James Slack from The Sun, for example. He was at the May 2020 Downing Street garden party and never mentioned it – the revelation had to come from another source.
People like him aren’t news reporters. Their function isn’t to tell you what’s being done by our leaders and how it affects you.
It is to keep you under control so they can carry on doing – well, what Johnson and his cronies were doing in that picture. It’s working well, too – after all, Johnson’s still prime minister, isn’t he?
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Boris’s buddy: Keir Starmer is more interested in chumming up with the prime minister, as he prepares to have his seventh, eighth or ninth child, than in providing moral and personal support to one of his own Labour MPs.
If he’s more interested in Tories, and in praising Tories, than in supporting members of his own party who have been through extremely trying times, what does that make Keir Starmer?
Apsana Begum has just been acquitted of making fraudulent housing claims after a court heard that she had been a victim of domestic abuse.
The Poplar and Limehouse Labour MP had been accused of three counts of making dishonest applications for council homes to Tower Hamlets Council.
But the charges were dropped – after 18 months of “false accusations, online sexist, racist, and Islamophobic abuse, and threats to [her] safety” – when Snaresbrook Crown Court heard her “controlling” husband was in charge of her finances and she was “shocked” to discover the paperwork was in her name.
Ms Begum has been widely congratulated for her court victory – particularly in the face of sustained abuse during the entire period the case was open – by such people as former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s wife…
My admiration for Apsana, for being a woman who fights against all adversity, slander, sexism and inequality, her honesty and decency it's an inspiration for The Many. https://t.co/DUwfF0pSdo
… particularly when Keir Starmer published congratulations to Boris and Carrie Johnson on the announcement that they are to have another baby:
And yet, no congratulations to Apsana Begum on clearing her name after an 18 month trial by social media, during which the domestic abuse survivor was subjected to sexist and racist abuse.
Perhaps Keir Starmer was hoping she'd *lose* so he could get rid of another socialist MP. https://t.co/AHTPTSonxx
— Frank Owen's Legendary Paintbrush 🟨🟥🥀🇵🇸 (@WarmongerHodges) July 31, 2021
Keir Starmer has the time to tweet congratulations to Johnson and his partner on their new baby but can't find time to do a simple solidarity tweet to an MP of his OWN party that's been a victim of domestic abuse. Unbelievable.
Another example of Starmer’s no-risk approach to communications. He can tweet this but has nothing to say to his own MP’s @DawnButlerBrent and @ApsanaBegumMP It simply shows he only cares about optics and nothing about having principles. https://t.co/Cp0PS8r6vh
FFS Starmer, one of your own MP's, a domestic violence survivor has been acquitted of a crime she was falsely accused of, 18 months of hell & STILL, 24 hours later you can't offer her an ounce of solidarity. Johnson & Carrie expecting however & there you are, like a fly on shit.
If Johnson was working class, he’d be referred to as breeder, a chav scrounger that needs to wear a condom.
However, this is a dead cat to cover up the fact they’re launching vaccine passports during recess and Raab taking substantial donations from the Russians. #Borisbaby
If that last comment is right, then not only is Starmer condoning Johnson’s hypocritical, entitled “one rule for me…” elitism; not only is he a sexist for praising Johnson over behaviour that would cause a woman to be shunned and ridiculed; but he is also colluding in the deception – by distraction – of the UK’s population.
I want to know about these Russian donations! And I want to find out more about these vaccine passports too. Instead I find myself having to draw attention to this, because it raises serious questions about Starmer’s status as Leader of the Opposition.
How can he oppose Johnson when he’s so busy helping him?
Will somebody please clear this squatter out of the Labour Party leadership?
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Reality Check: Boris Johnson having another baby? He’s still a baby himself!
Apparently Boris Johnson’s latest wife is pregnant again.
The announcement came from her and is therefore more likely to be true than if it came from him – although we can’t really be sure until we get confirmation from a doctor.
But the BBC has made this headline news. Why?
He is a minor politician – a public servant of very little accomplishment; he’s not the Queen.
And her only achievement (such as it is) is being attached to him.
They do not merit this level of attention.
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The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times, is still available in either print or eBook format here:
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Loadsamoney: the controversy over Boris Johnson’s flat has concentrated attention on the fact that Tories always find cash for their own benefit, while depriving members of the general public of the funding that a proper government should provide to them.
The Electoral Commission has announced that it is investigating the funding of redecoration work on Boris Johnson’s Downing Street flat, saying it has “reasonable grounds to suspect that an offence or offences may have occurred”.
And our friends on the social media have gone into satire overdrive.
Today they have targeted the prime ministerial consort, Carrie Symonds, under the hashtag #CarrieAntoinette – on the grounds that she was the driving force behind the astonishingly-expensive changes.
Many have pointed out the hypocrisy of being funded with huge amounts of cash to pay for the redecoration of a Tory prime minister’s flat, while the Tory government still refuses to fund safety improvements to blocks of flats afflicted with inflammable cladding that makes them as likely to go up in flames as Grenfell Tower (due to decisions by Tories, most likely):
Boris Johnson and #CarrieAntoinette should pay back every penny into a highly flammable cladding removal fund.
— Northern Independence Party 🟨🟥 (@FreeNorthNow) April 29, 2021
The image is of a John Lewis van outside the gates of Downing Street.
The way events are moving, in a few days we’ll be seeing a removal van there.
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Next time I get to “have a drink” – you know, “after a busy working day” – it’s going to be a bacchanalian orgy. Who’s up for it?
