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: 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.
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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Channel migrants: Tories like to persecute them because they have no power or influence – unlike tax cheats or the Partygate inquiry.
Here’s today’s top news in a nutshell:
The Tories and the right-wing press are trying to whip up hysteria about people crossing the channel in small boats – a small problem compared to the damage inflicted on the country by Tory lies, corruption, incompetence and Brexit.
— Nick Reeves #StandWithUkraine #FBPE #PATH (@nickreeves9876) March 6, 2023
The UK’s Tory government is intensifying its war on innocent refugees with legislation that means anyone arriving here in a small boat will be removed from the UK, banned from future re-entry and unable to apply for British citizenship.
The new law would circumvent refugees’ rights to protection under the UN’s Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights, by applying a “rights brake” – basically, ignoring those internationally-recognised rights.
So the new legislation will turn the UK into a rogue state that denies international law. Here’s a level head to explain it to you:
Rishi Sunak’s latest asylum ban is immoral, inhumane and in breach of international law.
We don’t need to see his Whatsapps to know why he is escalating his war on refugees: to stoke division, hatred & fear.
Seeking asylum is a human right — we must fight back to protect it.
Leading on from this, there are practical implications:
Sunak wants to make it illegal for those arriving in the UK by what he deems an illegal route to stay in the UK. He forgets, firstly, that the law on this issue is international and not domestic and so, secondly, he will have nowhere to send people to. His law will fail.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who will introduce the new laws, told the Sun on Sunday “the only route to the UK will be a safe and legal route”.
BBC Breakfast’s Sally Nugent tested that by asking Science, Innovation and Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan what legal routes were available – and the answer was revealing:
Sally Nugent – What is the legal route, if you're Iranian, & want to come to the UK?
Michelle Donelan – I'm not going to get into the specifics… there are safe routes..
So there are no safe routes into the UK for refugees. The claim that they exist is a big lie – otherwise Tory bigwigs like Donelan would be able to reel them off. If they appear on the morning media round, having information like that is their job.
And does anybody believe they are going to open up safe routes?
And of course they won’t admit that – as Nick Reeves tweeted at the top of this article – the primary cause of the skyrocketing small boat crossings is Boris Johnson’s Brexit:
Why is @BBC so reluctant to mention the new Durham University report finding Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal is the primary factor behind the skyrocketing number of small boat crossings? https://t.co/mMM5DmRPeg
As Peter Stefanovic highlights, the Tories’ failure to address the issue before Brexit is compounded by their reluctance to correct it, fearing it will make them look daft. But all they’re doing is making themselves look dafter – and vindictive with it.
And there are far more pressing concerns that the Tories are ignoring to concentrate on this. Mr Stefanovic mentioned the cost of living crisis, but how about a few others?
Here’s one:
Of course, wealthy tax cheats have powerful friends in newspapers. Some of them are powerful friends in newspapers. So it's a bit politically awkward. Refugees have no-one.
Oh, that’s right. Tax cheats have powerful friends in the media – and are some of them media magnates themselves? So attacking them might have the consequence of bad publicity. Refugees are much easier to attack because they don’t have that kind of whack.
Here’s another – Partygate. Oh, but Tories don’t like that because it attacks their once-golden boy Boris Johnson, doesn’t it?
Consider the way former 10 Downing Street speechwriter Clare Foges tries to brush it under the carpet:
'Former columnist for The Times and chief speechwriter at No 10' and Daily Mail columnist – of course she does
— Des Ecksmakina 🇫🇷 🇮🇪 🇪🇺 (@Broken_Politiks) March 6, 2023
So Tories raving it up together after banning the rest of us from being with our loved ones when they were dying with Covid-19 is not a big deal any more because the one responsible isn’t in that job any more?
It’s arrogant nonsense to expect anybody to believe that. If the Partygate inquiry finds against him, Johnson should be handed proper punishment and it should be harsh.
Refugees who are crossing the Channel to escape persecution certainly don’t deserve punishment for it – but they are exactly the kind of people the Tories like to hurt.
The reason should be clear: Tories are cowards. They only attack people who don’t have the ability to hurt them back.
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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 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?
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Money, money, money: but Boris Johnson never seems to use any of his own – it’s always yours.
This is the story – and I should have got to it before The Times, of all places:
Boris Johnson has earned nearly a million pounds in just over six weeks – but is claiming public money for legal representation at the Partygate inquiry – and the amount seems to be limitless.
Sadly, the story is behind a paywall, so this is all I can show you –
Boris Johnson has earned nearly a million pounds in just over six weeks, it has been revealed. The former prime minister registered more than half a million po
– plus the link below.
His earnings were mentioned in a previous Vox Political piece, here.
And his public-money funding for Partygate is the subject of this article in the Graun, although it’s covered by many other media outlets if that one isn’t your cup of tea.
Entitled arseheads like Johnson really take the biscuit, don’t they?
He’s taken a million quid on the side – that’s additional to his MP salary, and has anybody actually seen him in the House of Commons lately? – but he wouldn’t dream of using any of it to fight the Partygate allegations.
He’ll happily take it from you and me instead.
That’s how they stay rich and you stay poor.
£320,000 for Matt Hancock, £1m for Boris Johnson, £27m for Nadhim Zahawi and £29m for Michelle Mone. What cost of living crisis?
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Wow. At least 24 civil servants have now complained about bullying by Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab, it seems.
Not only that, but there are also inquiries into the behaviour of Nadhim Zahawis (another Cabinet member) and Boris Johnson, a former prime minister.
Rishi Sunak and his Cabinet were apparently having an away day in Chequers to discuss Conservative Party strategies – despite the fact that Parliament was sitting and they were using government property – so one wonders whether he was taking the opportunity to clear the chaff. One suspects not, because he’s too weak.
Enjoy also the pathetic attempt at deflection onto Keir Starmer by Angela Epstein. She reckons he’s not a good leader because he supported Jeremy Corbyn, and brought up the manufactured Labour anti-Semitism crisis as proof. But anti-Semitism in Labour fell under Corbyn – the claims against him were nonsense. Starmer is a rotten leader for reasons entirely due to himself.
As Kevin Maguire points out about her comments: “We’ve got a lousy rotten governent so look over there.”
Here’s a bit more on that Tory strategy meeting, courtesy of A Different Bias:
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This is more for information than any other reason.
Buy popcorn.
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Not a party? This shot was taken during a Christmas quiz at Downing Street – note the tinsel around one person’s neck and the open bottle of alcoholic beverage. Johnson later said all Covid-19 rules were followed at these events – including those for which he and others were fined. Was he lying? That’s what the current inquiry is tasked with determining.
Why is a Cabinet Office lawyer advising a private individual – Boris Johnson – on Partygate?
Apparently a decision by the Commons Privileges committee, that is investigating whether Johnson misled Parliament over the Partygate scandal, that it does not have to prove that he intended to do so, to prove contempt of Parliament.
But Lord Pannick, the legal eagle hired by the government to examine the committee’s approach, said the inquiry needs to establish “that Mr Johnson intended to mislead the House [of Commons] – that is that he knew that what he told the House was incorrect”.
He added that that “the threat of contempt proceedings for unintentional mistakes would have a seriously chilling effect” on MPs.
He said the committee’s approach is inconsistent with past cases where intent was taken into account and the process would be deemed “unlawful” if it was tested in a court.
And he criticised the committee for taking evidence anonymously and said Mr Johnson should be told the detail of the case against him.
The committee’s own lawyer, former judge Sir Ernest Ryder, has already said potential witnesses may not be prepared to give evidence if their identity is made public.
The committee’s spokesperson said it will respond to the other criticisms in due course.
But the fact that Pannick was commissioned to act on Johnson’s behalf suggests that the government is still trying to interfere with Parliamentary process and has learned nothing from the results of – for example – the Owen Paterson scandal.
It seems we won’t be free of the stench of corruption around Boris Johnson – even after he has stopped being prime minister.
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Boris Johnson: regarding his honesty, public opinion tends to go against him, as this graphic shows.
Isn’t it scandalous that some Conservative MPs are trying to use their position and influence to pre-judge an investigation into whether Boris Johnson misled Parliament?
According to the BBC,
allies of the outgoing PM dismissed the investigation by the Commons Privileges Committee as a “witch hunt” and “rigged”.
The inquiry will examine whether he obstructed Parliament by telling it that pandemic rules had been followed [when in fact more than a dozen rule-breaking parties are known to have happened, with many more suspected].
The probe could lead to Mr Johnson facing a by-election to remain an MP, if it leads to his suspension from the Commons for more than 10 days.
Apparently the comments started flying after the committee said it would not have to prove that Johnson deliberately misled MPs to show he committed a “contempt of Parliament” by obstructing its work.
Johnson loyalist and Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said the “Machiavellian” inquiry was “the means to a by-election” and called on Tory MPs to “have no part in it”.
Environment Minister Lord Goldsmith, whom Mr Johnson made a peer in December 2019, said the inquiry was “clearly rigged” and an “obscene abuse of power”.
Backbench Tory MP Michael Fabricant also accused the committee of wanting to “get rid of Boris Johnson” and “changing the rules”.
In response,
one of the Tory MPs on the committee, Sir Bernard Jenkin, said the committee had a “duty” to carry out the inquiry and accused Ms Dorries of waging a “terrorist campaign to try and discredit the committee”.
So now, in a move to halt this internecine fighting within the Tory Party, chief whip Chris Heaton-Harris has demanded decorum:
“May I urge caution against any further comments in the media about the Privileges Committee and especially its Clerk and Members,” wrote Mr Heaton-Harris, who is in charge of party discipline.
“Invariably these comments will be misinterpreted by those who do not wish to help us.”
Johnson has denied deliberately misleading MPs. The committee – with a majority of Conservative MPs – has said it has not “prejudged” any aspect of its inquiry, and the parliamentary officials advising it are politically impartial.
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