Bunga bunga? Boris Johnson – at a party – with a Russian oligarch (this one is industrialist Alexander Temerko). At the time, Johnson didn’t think there was any reason to investigate Russian influence in UK politics. Now, he simply won’t answer questions about these associations.
Here’s a welcome humorous interlude before we all try to get to grips with Rishi Sunak’s rubbish spring statement.
After Labour’s Matt Western scored a hit last week, asking what attracted Boris Johnson to billionaire Russian oligarchs, he returned to ask why MI6 considers Johnson such a security risk.
The prime ministers response was… well, see for yourself. It wasn’t an answer!
Begging bowl already loaded: this is actually a stock shot to illustrate Boris Johnson’s junket around the world, trying to chum up with foreign dictators in return for cheap oil. But what does he have to offer in return?
Boris Johnson’s decision to traipse around the world’s dictators with his begging bowl in hand has been mocked harshly by MPs in the UK’s Parliament.
He is currently in Saudi Arabia to sign a business deal with the government there, days after it carried out the largest mass execution of civilians in modern history – 81 people including seven people from neighbouring Yemen, with whom the Saudis are at war.
Called out over it by Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner during (Deputy) Prime Minister’s Questions, Dominic Raab had no answer other than a complete non-sequitur about the Salisbury Poisoning of 2018 and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
He was upbraided by Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle for harking back to the past,
And his claim wasn’t even accurate!
None of his bluster cut any ice with MPs, though – as a subsequent question by Alistair Carmichael showed:
And it struck a jarring contrast with Raab’s own words about the “despotic regime” in Iran that has just released Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe after six years.
After Ms Rayner welcomed the development – and asked for an inquiry to determine whether Johnson’s “lazy words” in 2018 had lengthened her prison term, Raab suggested she should not give “succour” to Iran:
What an odd thing to suggest about a dictatorship that only released her because his government had finally paid a decades-old £400 million debt in order to gain access to that “despotic regime” and its oil!
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Meltdown: Boris Johnson lost his thread, his reason, and possibly his mind trying to defend his government’s execrable record on admitting Ukrainian refugees. The reason is clear: he’s trying to obstruct them as much as possible, but he can’t be seen to be doing so.
Boris Johnson’s appalling record of turning away hundreds of refugees from the UK – because they didn’t have the right paperwork – led to him suffering an apparent meltdown during Prime Minister’s Questions in Parliament.
We all know the situation, and I can illustrate it with a few tweets:
Priti Patel says no one is being turned away at the border.
British man, David, on @SkyNews with Ukrainian wife and their two children stopped at Calais by UK Border Control.@pritipatel stop playing games with the lives of people fleeing for their lives.
So the UK demands a mountain of paperwork – somebody was asked for a utility bill; who thinks to bring one of those along when they’re running for their life? – and turns people away in any case.
Reading from a file (!) Johnson tried to say this wasn’t true – but his claim about visa centres being open across eastern Europe rang false after the BBC had revealed a “pop-up” centre for Calais – discussed in Parliament yesterday (March 8) had failed to appear today.
His speech fell into hesitation and incoherence partway through. He managed to pull himself together enough to deliver a rehearsed line about the importance of checks – but was almost immediately contradicted by another questioner:
“When will refugees from the Ukraine be welcome in the United Kingdom?”
I think we all know the answer to that, under Johnson’s government:
When they no longer want to come here.
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Laughing at us: Boris Johnson grinned inanely and bobbed about on his bench while MPs attacked his contempt for the rules and denials of guilt.
What an apocalyptic performance.
Prime Minister’s Questions could hardly have gone worse for Boris Johnson. It is hard to tell which moment was more damaging for him.
Was it this, in which senior Tory MP – and himself a former leadership contender – David Davis quoted (among others) Oliver Cromwell?
I was one of many to comment on it…
The @DavidDavisMP intervention changes everything. People have been saying the Tories don't have anyone with whom to replace @BorisJohnson so won't replace him, but this suggests that the grandees don't care and just want him out. #PMQs#PoliticsLive
Alternatively, was the tipping-point this moment, in which Johnson himself laughed at criticisms of his rule-breaking?
I had something to say about this as well:
It's a sharp contrast to last week's show of contrition, with @BorisJohnson smirking, pulling faces and bobbing about on his bench like a naughty schoolboy. Does he not know how bad it looks when he has been caught rule-breaking – like a naughty schoolboy? #PMQs#PoliticsLive
And now we’re all waiting to see if Graham Brady, chairman of the Tory backbench 1922 Committee, will come out and say he’s received enough ‘no confidence’ letters to trigger a leadership challenge against Johnson.
After today’s performance it seems that, for many of us – Tories and Opposition alike – that moment can’t come soon enough.
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Boris Johnson: his entire career could rest on his performance in Prime Minister’s Questions on January 19.
It seems rumours about a group of Tory MPs from the 2019 preparing to challenge Boris Johnson’s leadership are accurate.
In a previous article, I drew your attention to this:
One Tory MP from the 2019 intake claiming a group of them are "ready to make a statement about Boris" over partygate row, adding that "it’s not positive". https://t.co/Wzvm18Q5zg
Now the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg has got on the case, although it seems she’s treating it like a damage-limitation exercise on Johnson’s behalf.
According to Ms K,
there’s a notion that they will as, a group, submit their letters [of no confidence in Boris Johnson] to Sir Graham after Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday afternoon.
She reckons there are around 20 of these MPs, rather than a dozen, as previously suggested. If it’s true that 35 MPs have already submitted ‘no confidence’ letters to Graham Brady, chair of the backbench 1922 Committee, then he will have 55, which is one more than the threshold for a challenge to Johnson’s leadership.
Kuenssberg went on to say that a Johnson-loyalist Cabinet member has dismissed the “notion”, saying it is not a serious threat to the prime minister but a “pork pie plot”, playing on the fact that one of the 2019 group is Alicia Kearns, MP for Rutland and Melton (home of the pork pie).
If her report of that intervention is accurate, then it can only make Johnson and his people look worse because, as Kuenssberg states,
colleagues say Ms Kearns has been unfairly targeted and that she’s not leading any rebellion.
Let’s hope other Conservative MPs are as disgusted by the behaviour of this Cabinet member as I am, and they add their support to the 2019 group and oust BoJob before he can do any more harm to the UK.
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Boris Johnson finally shambled out to the Dispatch Box and attempted to apologise for attending the lawbreaking, lockdown-busting Downing Street party on May 20, 2020, during Prime Minister’s Questions.
He must have realised that he would not be able to avoid answering questions about it any more.
Before watching the clip, remind yourself of the context:
‘I have been repeatedly assured that there were no parties, and that no covid rules were broken. That was what I have been repeatedly assured’
The PM to the House of Commons on December 8, 2021.
Did he think that, even though he must have received the emailed invitation (it’s technically the garden of his home; nothing happens there without his knowledge)?
Whether Johnson “saw” the invite isn’t the point. It is utterly implausible that the party was authorised without him giving the ok because it is his garden! Nothing like this happens in the No 10 garden without the PM or his wife agreeing
Of course @BorisJohnson could have asked his wife, Carrie Johnson, who was with him and drinking (gin, I’m told), whether they were at a party, if he wasn’t sure
Neither were Keir Starmer, Ian Blackford, Karl Turner, Chris Bryant, Ed Davey or many, many other Opposition MPs. Here’s a montage of their comments:
Johnson did answer these questions – but not with anything that was worth hearing. I’ll put clips of the questions with answers up on my YouTube channel (hint: please subscribe).
Conservative MPs tried to fill PMQs with questions about anything else at all, in a vain attempt to distract from the sheer cringing awfulness of what their leader had admitted.
And then Safeguarding minister Rachael Maclean tried to justify it on the BBC’s Politics Live. Her attempted evasions were so bad they may actually qualify as comedy. See for yourself:
And it wasn’t enough, I hear.
Apparently the number of letters winging their way to the chair of the Conservative Party’s backbench 1922 committee is fast approaching the 54 necessary to trigger a leadership challenge:
Re letters of no confidence. The open talk among Tories about Boris Johnson going has exploded. We know of a handful of letters that have gone in but so many more I talk to want the PM gone. It’s timing for them. One has just texted to say theirs is “being written” now.
BREAKING: 1922 Committee says there could be a no-confidence vote in Boris Johnson in days as the number of letters that have received from Tory MP's nears 53.
Johnson’s so called apology has gone down badly even on his own side. It was such an obvious & insincere prevarication in a desperate attempt to play for time.I think the Tory backbenchers & those around Johnson recognise that it’s only a matter of time before he is forced out.
So, politically speaking, is Johnson a dead man walking? We should know by the weekend.
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How do you fancy living in a UK led by Priti Patel?
(Although, let’s be honest, if you remember the reason she was forced to resign by Theresa May, you’ll think it’s being run by the government of Israel.)
Here’s The London Economic:
Priti Patel is reportedly ready to run for prime minister as Boris Johnson may be facing a vote of no confidence.
The Home Secretary is considering throwing her hat in the ring to replace her current boss as both the Conservative party leader and prime minister, according to The Sunday Times.
According to The Sunday Times, chancellor Rishi Sunak and foreign secretary Liz Truss already have donors lined up. Other possible candidates are Michael Gove, Nadhim Zahawi, Jeremy Hunt, Tom Tugendhat and Matt Hancock.
What a candidates’ list! Drunks, druggies, liars and lechers; the richest man in the UK (what does he know about the problems ordinary people face?) and the Evil Queen of Cheese.
All of them lining up to stab Boris Johnson in the back.
But it should be clear to even the most devout Tory that their party only won a landslide at the last general election because people believed Johnson’s lies about Brexit – and media lies about Jeremy Corbyn.
They’re now much less likely to believe either.
Without a charismatic figure to rekindle public support, their goose is well and truly cooked.
And they don’t even know what a charismatic figure looks like; they thought Johnson was one.
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His attitude to voters: and let’s not forget that the Conservatives are relying on the voters of Old Bexley and Sidcup to return their candidate in today’s (December 2) by-election.
It takes a special kind of Tory arrogance to lie repeatedly to the nation, just one day after running away from a censure motion in Parliament about lying.
But that’s the kind of arrogant Tory that Boris Johnson really is.
Don’t take my word for it, though!
Take that of Peter Stefanovic:
A shameful new low for the Prime Minister. Hot air, bluster & outright lies. Today’s PMQS unwrapped https://t.co/gQ0zjzArYK
I wonder how the people of Old Bexley and Sidcup feel, being asked to return a Conservative to Parliament in their by-election by a man whose promises mean so little?
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Keir Starmer: how many own goals must he score before Labour Party members decide his game is over?
Wow. Asked five times if he thought Jeremy Corbyn would be a better prime minister than Boris Johnson, Keir Starmer would not answer.
That’s as good as an admission that he actually preferred Johnson – but couldn’t say so because that would have meant admitting he was a massive hypocrite, and possibly even that he had actively sabotaged Corbyn’s 2019 election campaign to prevent him from winning.
(We hear that many other allegedly Labour representatives did.)
The confrontation happened on Radio 4’s Today programme and incensed large numbers of Labour supporters listening. This is just one of the milder responses on Twitter:
Can I just say, to help out Keir Starmer, yes, @jeremycorbyn would have been a million times better leader than Johnson.
Dedicated to public service, serious, internationalist, ambitious in his plans for housing, the NHS, pay and the environment, Corbyn was the man.
Perhaps more important is this question: why do political reporters still feel the need to ask about an election that happened nearly two years ago?
Here’s a possible answer:
I think the reason is simple. The media establishment helped to crush an effort at political reform & they need to keep justifying this to themselves & eachother. https://t.co/ETqxLbb3ux
Inevitably, listeners came up with their own answer to a question that, although unasked on air, occurred to many of them:
Sir Keir Starmer is unsure if Jeremy Corbyn would've been a better prime minister than Boris Johnson. Well, I am 100% sure Jeremy Corbyn would be a better prime minister than Sir Keir Starmer.
And public opinion matters. Starmer has shot himself in the foot yet again – by holding his tongue.
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UK aid: Priti Patel’s previous attempt to get the UK to provide aid to Israel, to help that country’s soldiers occupy part of Syria, is not what that stands for. But did Boris Johnson even consider that when going back on his decision to give her the duties of the former Security Minister?
There’s a little debate about what exactly happened here.
The role of security minister was handed to Home Secretary Priti Patel around a month ago, after then-incumbent James Brokenshire announced that he had to give it up to fight cancer. He had had the disease before but it had returned.
This should have been on a strictly temporary – emergency – basis while Johnson found a replacement.
But Johnson dithered.
He left Patel in charge of the brief for more than a month and then – yesterday, the day after a gunman shot five people in Plymouth in the worst shooting incident on UK soil since 2010 – it was reported that Patel was taking over the role on a permanent basis.
Priti Patel to take over security minister brief on permanent basis Another mindless, reckless decision by Johnson. https://t.co/c29E7Pa9MJ
One is encouraged to speculate on the reason for the apparent confusion – and one logical answer presents itself immediately.
The ‘Security’ brief includes counter-terrorism, serious and organised crime, cybercrime, economic crime, hostile state activity, extradition, and royal and VIP protection.
It also covers online harms; the common travel area between the UK, Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands; aviation and maritime security; Grenfell; and flooding, hurricane, and natural disaster relief.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the minister also oversaw the functioning of the domestic national security system, including MI5 and counter-terrorism policing, as well as the functioning of the serious and organised crime system, including the National Crime Agency, and cybersecurity.
Backtract a little…
“Hostile state activity”?
Didn’t Priti Patel go on a junket to Israel while pretending to be on holiday, hold meetings with a series of heavyweight Israeli politicians including then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and then try to use her influence as (then-) International Development Secretary to divert some of that department’s budget to fund the Israel Defence Force occupying the Golan Heights in Syria?
And didn’t this happen only a few months after an Israeli Embassy employee conspired with at least one Conservative to have Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan removed from his position because he was perceived to be hostile to that country?
Both those actions could be deemed to be activity by a hostile state.
And one of them involved Patel herself. Clearly she is unfit to be trusted with such a sensitive government brief.
So I wonder whether Johnson was reminded of this, and changed his mind.
That would at least suggest that he has some sense of judgement.
The alternative – that he made his decision without even realising that his Home Secretary is herself a security risk – is horrifying indeed. Isn’t it?
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