But the Tory advert doesn’t explain the mechanics of the 5p per litre fuel duty cut, which may not be noticed at the pumps because it will take a while for retailers to finish selling what they bought at the old prices – and by the time the new stuff come on, the wholesale price is likely to have risen again.
Worse, for some, is the apparent amateurishness of the design:
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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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It’s been said before: it isn’t the wrongdoing that brings down governments – it’s the cover-up.
Yesterday (December 7, 2021), ITV News screened video of Boris Johnson’s then-press secretary, Allegra Stratton, laughing and joking about a Christmas party that government representatives, MPs and ministers have sworn blind did not take place on December 18, 2020, in a press conference rehearsal that happened four days later:
So there it is. Four days after the party –Â and we know now that it definitely took place – Downing Street staff were rehearsing how to lie about it. Remember, nobody would even claim publicly that it had happened for almost an entire year after the time this was recorded.
After the allegations were finally made, the lies started flying thick and fast. For brevity, here’s Peter Stefanovic’s video that captures all the televised falsehoods, including Boris Johnson’s own lie:
The No 10 Christmas party story has seen a significant development tonight so here is my NEW update
Itâs incomprehensible, shocking, outrageous and must surely lead to resignations at the highest levels of Government pic.twitter.com/be3rPC62tK
The Metropolitan Police, having refused to investigate allegations of a party earlier this week – on the basis that they don’t investigate crimes that have already happened – are apparently looking at the Stratton video and considering whether to investigate.
(It probably means they are trying to find a good reason not to. Hopefully the Rees-Mogg video will tip the balance and they’ll have to do something. Interviewing Stratton and Rees-Mogg might be a start.)
This Writer had thought no new evidence was likely to be seen yesterday beyond the revelation that a ‘secret Santa’ present-giving had taken place – meaning the party had been planned well in advance (otherwise the secret present-givers would not have had time to arrange their gifts), and had not been cancelled after London went into Tier 3 Covid-19 restrictions and all social gatherings were banned. How much more wrong could I have been?
It is the âsecret Santaâ detail in the Times about the Downing St party last 18 Dec that is a serious problem for the government. Because that would indicate it was properly planned, and should have been cancelled under Tier 3 rules. It is clear this story is not going away pic.twitter.com/5edD4P7dko
Downing Street itself has doubled-down, continuing to insist that all relevant rules had been followed and adding that Johnson himself certainly did not attend a party.
But that doesn’t matter, because he lied about it.
And he lied while Conservative Party vice-chair Nickie Aiken was on television (BBCÂ Politics Live) telling us all how accusations of lying were bad because they encourage people to think they can’t trust politicians. She even mentioned the Covid-19 pandemic and said she didn’t believe any member of the government would bring Parliament into disrepute:
Conservative MP Nicki Aiken says calling MPs liars "filters down into the public" and causes distrust, "there's a huge difference between debate and abuse"
I would like to see her on tomorrow’s Politics Live, commenting on the Stratton and Rees-Mogg clips. What does she have to say now?
Because it’s the lying that is hurtful.
Yesterday evening I watched the ITV News report on this. Anchorman Tom Bradby seemed to be so angry he couldn’t get his words out properly, and a pre-recorded insert was shown featuring members of the public, including one of the many who lost loved ones on the day of the party, reacting to it. The rage was palpable.
It should never be forgotten that 489 people died with Covid-19 on the day these Sloane Rangers and Hooray Henrys were raving it up in Downing Street – and more than 600 on the day Allegra Stratton was laughing about it in her mock press conference.
The reason people are angry is because they were laughing at us – the people who had to obey the rules while they flouted them.
Allow me to show you just a taste of that anger, from Twitter:
“Dear Allegra Stratton
“On the day you partied, my mother called me, breathless and feverish. I didn’t visit. On the day you joked, she was admitted to hospital. I didn’t visit. As you celebrated Christmas, she died without family by her side. I promise you, it wasn’t funny.”
Let’s not forget that the Metropolitan Police – the same force that initially refused to investigate allegations that people in Downing Street broke the rules – are this very week prosecuting members of the public over a house party in Ilford.
How much evidence does Cressida Dick need? She has video evidence that the party took place – including a clip from inside the event itself, and because Downing Street is guarded by police at all times she has the names of everybody who was signed into and out of the premises at the time the party happened. That should be enough to build what should be a watertight case –Â and now there really is no excuse not to.
So we come back to Boris Johnson – who is also in trouble now because he lied that he did not interfere in the evacuation from Afghanistan to allow a dog rescue charity to remove its animals to the UK.
There was a party. It took place at 10 Downing Street – where he lives. It was illegal. It happened when all social gatherings were banned. It involved a large amount of people who weren’t even attempting social distancing. Johnson’s then-press secretary joked about it being a “cheese and wine” event or “fictional”. And Johnson lied about it.
All of the above suggests that TV funsters Ant and Dec were right on the button when they said these words on yesterday’s edition of I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!:
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Contempt: Boris Johnson exhibits his honest reaction to the ordinary people of the United Kingdom who voted him into the highest office in the land.
If you know anybody who still thinks Boris Johnson gives a damn about their interests, or has the well-being of the UK at heart, tell them what happened to Damian Furniss.
Mr Furniss is now a writer and a worker in health and social care, based in Devon. But in 1984, he was awaiting an interview for a place at Balliol College, Oxford, when he encountered Johnson at the bar:
“Three years older than me, and half way through the second class degree in Classics he coasted through with the diligence he later applied to journalism and red box briefings, you’d have expected him to play the ambassador role, welcoming an aspiring member of his college.
“Instead, his piss-taking was brutal. In the course of the pint I felt obliged to finish he mocked my speech impediment, my accent, my school, my dress sense, my haircut, my background, my father’s work as farm worker and garage proprietor, and my prospects in the scholarship interview I was there for. His only motive was to amuse his posh boy mates.
“In short, he demonstrated all of the character flaws that make him unfit to be our Prime Minister. Nothing I see today suggests he has changed. He’s not Falstaff, he’s Faust. If you are an ordinary working person and think he has your interests at heart, think again.”
Read it for yourself, if you are able to read text in images:
The trouble is, there are millions of ordinary working people who still – unaccountably – reckon that Johnson does have their interests at heart.
If you know any of them, please do the rest of us a favour.
Tell them about what happened to Mr Furniss. Get them to read this article if you can.
And then make it clear to them that Boris Johnson would treat them in exactly the same way.
He’s an overprivileged, entitled posh boy whose only interest is his own enrichment. He thinks you exist purely to supply him and his oiky buddies with free money, or to entertain them by submitting to his insults and bullying.
He doesn’t care about you and he never will – and everything he does is intended to harm you.
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Matt Hancock tried to pretend he was tearing up at the sight of a gentleman named William Shakespeare (no kidding; I think they must have searched him out for the photo opportunity) being among the first to get the new Covid-19 vaccination.
Instead he made it seem that he was laughing at us all.
That’s a dangerous thing for a government minister to do, after presiding over tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths due to poor preparation and tens of thousands more after giving away billions of pounds to fellow Conservatives who claimed they were running companies that could help but turned out to be liars in expensive suits.
Still, some of us managed to laugh at him…
WHAT Shakepeare was quoted to make this man cry? WAS IT this from King Lear?
Get thee glass eyes, And like a scurvy politician seem To see the things thou dost not. https://t.co/SvqavFkAYu
William Shakespeare being the first man to get the vaccine was one in the eye for Christopher Marlowe
— Daisy Ecksmakina đ«đ· đźđȘ đȘđș (@Broken_Politiks) December 8, 2020
Meanwhile, 616 more people were reported to have died of the virus yesterday, meaning the death rate has maintained its level of more than 600 per day, despite Hancock’s (claimed) efforts to get it down. His English lockdown achieved nothing.
616 further tragic Covid-19 deaths today.
It feels like we have been normalised to this avoidable devastation.
Hancock should be weeping for these victims, not pretending to cry on the Telly.
The total number of cases increased by 12,282 – down slightly from 14,718 cases recorded on Monday.
The total number of people who have died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus is now 62,033 (according to the new recording system. The actual number of Covid-19-related deaths is much higher).
The total number of people to test positive for the virus in the last seven days has reached 107,158.
And since the pandemic started, there have been 1,750,241 confirmed Covid-19 infections in the UK.
UK coronavirus deaths rise by 616 – with another 12,282 positive testshttps://t.co/vKUvJRKtJl
It has now been revealed that London emerged from Boris Johnson’s second lockdown with more Covid-19 cases than when it started, with rates still rising across three quarters of the cityâs 32 boroughs in the week to 3 December.
Public Health England data shows that there were 174.1 infections per 100,000 London residents in the seven days to 3 December â up from 154.5 a week earlier.
Analysis by The Independent found this figure to be higher than dozens of areas in Tier 3, including Middlesbrough (170), Manchester (166), Nottingham (152), Leeds (150), Bristol (141) and Newcastle-upon-Tyne (128).
London is in Tier 2.
But that’s as much of an amateur theatrical show as Hancock’s fake tears.
[Image from Pride’s Purge, using material from Terry Craven’s Facebook page.]
I was shocked when I saw the images above – as I expect you may be, if you are seeing them here for the first time.
They are of a 64-year-old man living in Birkenhead, here in the UK. He had been left to starve by the Conservative government’s barbaric mockery of a benefit system until, at the time these images were taken (Christmas Eve, 2018), he weighed just six stone, had contracted pneumonia and was “at death’s door”.
Employment law advisor Terry Craven provides the full story on his Facebook page:
“Please spare a thought for this 64 year old severely disabled client of mine? Please share this post to see if we can garner a response from the Tories although I doubt we will.
“My client was thrown off ESA by ATOS 18 months ago. Since then, he has been expected to sign on. Obviously, heâs been sanctioned and forced to go hungry. so much so he weighs 6 stone. On Friday [December 21], not surprisingly he was at deathâs door with pneumonia. Fortunately, I was able to get him into hospital. Evidently, his left lung was full of fluid with his right not much better. Heâs now on the mend.
“He has been unable to heat or look after his home properly because his health has deteriorated which I suggest is obvious from the photographs. He lives in one room of his 3 bedroom house he rents from a private landlord. It is rat infested, he cannot use the toilet nor is he strong enough to put water in a kettle. He relies on bottled water. I am making efforts to have him rehoused in sheltered accommodation. However, I think he may have to go into a nursing/residential home in the interim.
“Birkenhead Benefits Centre has ignored my continuous pleas for help, heartless bastards!
“Well hereâs wishing May, IDS, Esther McVey a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. The one thing which is certain is my client will not have one thanks to their evil, Dickensian policies. I hope they all rot in hell for the sickness, death and hunger the Tories have heaped on disabled people since 2010. My Christmas wish is for a general election and a Corbyn/McDonell government.”
By now, you may be even more appalled than when you saw the images. But there is an even more horrifying aspect to this story –Â the reaction of some members of the public.
Initial responses were as one might have expected from members of the public faced with such a shocking revelation of the reality of Conservative benefit policies:
Apparently heâs stronger, still sanctioned and still 6 stoneđ. I shared this on Facebook on Christmas and no one batted an eyelid, then yesterday my husband shared it again! I saw rage when I noticed people where not reading the story or looking at the photograph! So sad & angry
How about the abhorrent attitude of “Crantastic”, here?
You donât get it. If you can look at those appalling images of a living man and react as you just did, you too have been severely damaged by the Tories. You might be comfortable and well fed, but you have been destroyed as a human.
— EzzieWilf – #Masketeer #2m #Section44 (@ezziewilf) January 13, 2019
I tend to agree with Ezzie Wilfred. Anyone reacting with such a lack of simple human compassion has been damaged by the Conservatives too – just not in a way that is as visible as the 64-year-old in the photographs, who is another victim of attempted Tory chequebook euthanasia.
The constant drip-feeding of Tory propaganda against benefit claimants, the sick and the old has desensitised these people. I would say they may even be suffering from a form of sociopathic disorder.
Or they may be trolls who have been paid to tweet poison at us, in order to “nudge” public opinion into line with what the Tories want. Judging by the fact that both the offensive accounts mentioned above have been around for many years but neither has many followers, this seems likely.
The best thing to do when encountering accounts like these is to block them.
Theresa May announced a crackdown on social media abuse in February last year, but these people are still here.
You may come to a conclusion about the reason for that. I could not possibly comment.
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Jean-Claude Juncker seems to have taken great pleasure in Theresa May’s little routine. It seems likely the EU will lead her on a merry dance as well.
Perhaps it would have been better if Theresa May had actually shot herself in the foot, rather than doing it metaphorically with that silly attempt-at-a-dance she did before her speech to the Tory conference last week.
I’m sure you don’t need reminding but I’m going to do it anyway – using a Tweet that proposed an appropriate change of lyric. Here she is:
Mr Juncker is President of the European Commission and, although he has denied mocking Mrs May, we can certainly infer that he has an opinion about her as a result of that little giggle.
I think the Brexit negotiations are about to go off the tracks, yet again.
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Conventional wisdom suggests Theresa May is terrified of what Boris Johnson might do from the back benches, if she forces him out of the Cabinet.
But Amber Rudd has already been sent there after Mrs May forced her to take the blame for the Windrush scandal (instead of the weakling prime minister herself) – and she hasn’t kicked up a fuss!
I know – they’re different people.
Personally, I wish I’d brought popcorn.
This infighting between leading Tories shows they are deeply divided and the only thing holding Mrs May’s administration together in any way is the selfish instinct for self-preservation.
The whole lot of them have to go. They know it, and they know we know, but they damn well won’t go yet – not when they can inflict years more damage on the UK and its citizens.
The rest of us will just have to endure them as well as we can, in the knowledge that, the longer they cling on now, the longer they’ll be out when the electorate finally summons up the courage to push them out.
And in the meantime we get to enjoy pieces of theatre like this. And when I say theatre, I mean farce.
Boris Johnson has seemingly mocked Theresa May over Cabinet Brexit divisions â just minutes after the Prime Minster faced a grilling over splits in her top team.
Speaking in the Commons after Prime Ministerâs Questions, the Foreign Secretary quipped he was in âconformityâ with Theresa May over the UKâs post-Brexit customs policy â as the policy has âyet to be decidedâ.
The remark, which left many on the Tory benches seemingly stunned, was delivered as Johnson was making a statement on President Trumpâs decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal.
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Tick tock, Theresa May… Her public appearances are becoming so bad she can hardly speak – perhaps because of the Tory knives that are already digging into her back?
Theresa May is the gift that keeps on giving to political commentators.
Her performance at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday was so dire that it has encouraged many to believe she will be gone in a matter of weeks, if not days.
Here’s Peter Stefanovic to explain some of the lies she spouted:
At one point, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was moved to ask what planet Mrs May was living on, to be coming out with such tripe. Her belated answer caused much hilarity – not to mention a barbed comment on her own warmongering:
"Leader of the opposition asked me what planet I was on earlier, we all know what planet he and shadow chancellor are on: Planet Venezuela" pic.twitter.com/0x3vDIJImK
— BBC Daily Politics and Sunday Politics (@daily_politics) October 11, 2017
Hi @theresa_may I'm shocked you didn't realise Venezuela is a country, not a planet, what with you supplying them with military equipment.
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