Awkward: Conor Duignan regretted taking part in this Starmer selfie, so he took to Twitter to explain why.
Top marks to Skwawkbox for finding and publicising this.
It seems Keir Starmer visited St Columb’s college in Derry to hammer home his point that “my Labour Party” will “always support a deal to bring peace to Northern Ireland”.
While he was there, he posed for selfies with some of the students – and in (at least) one case, got the students to pose again so he could get a publicity photo.
But this backfired.
It seems one of the students had a rude epiphany, and realised that Starmer was using him cynically.
Here’s Starmer’s tweet:
Hearing from students in St Columb's College in Derry today, it's clear how important the peace and reconciliation embodied by John and Pat Hume is to this community.
My Labour Party will always support a deal to bring peace to Northern Ireland. pic.twitter.com/A0ZOuQxBBc
I’m the one pictured getting a selfie and Jesus I regret it, your a pretentious dick who laughed in my face when I asked you about jeremy corbyn. You asked us to retake the selfie so ur buddy could take another photo which shows again ur using John humes name as a photo op
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How will the Met Police justify this? 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.
Days after police decided not to fine Boris Johnson again for attending illegal Downing Street parties, we see that it is all a lie.
Johnson did attend at least one party beyond the birthday event in 2020 for which he was fined.
It was during a time of full lockdown in England – November 13, 2020 – when only two people from different households were allowed to mix indoors.
Questioned in Parliament on whether a party had taken place on that date, Johnson said, “No but I’m sure that whatever happened, the guidance was followed, and the rules were followed at all times.”
But images published by ITV News show at least eight people in a Downing Street room, meaning at least nine were there including the photographer. They were from many different households.
We can clearly see a table covered with bottles of substances including Champagne or Cava, wine and gin, and party cups – one of which is being hefted by Johnson as he gives what is clearly a party speech.
Excuses that this was a “works do” won’t wash, because a “works do” is still a party – and in any case, one person who attended this event to mark the departure of comms chief Lee Cain was fined for it.
Claims that Johnson was “just passing through” because his red box is visible, discarded nearby, are unconvincing because we have already heard that Johnson pays very little attention to the contents of his red boxes, which have been seen unattended outside his Downing Street flat (a blatant security risk) while the prime minister himself receives briefings on their contents via WhatsApp.
Perhaps that particular box was actually in the possession of one of the other people at the party, who had either already written a briefing for their lazy party-boy boss or was going to do it later.
So Johnson quite clearly and categorically lied to Parliament about his attendance at this party. Why haven’t the police fined him, then?
This Site has already discussed suggestions from a solicitor that Met officers may have been influenced by deference for Johnson’s position as prime minister, in contradiction of the requirement that everybody must be treated equally in the eyes of the law.
The same expert also suggested that Johnson had been able to afford to get “lawyered up” with expensive representatives whose services were beyond the means of the lower-paid civil servants who could not evade fixed penalty notices – another indication of preferential treatment.
So Metropolitan Police investigators have serious questions to answer.
The Met has “declined to explain” why Johnson was not fined for attending a party when somebody else was – indicating a guilty conscience, perhaps?
The Independent Office for Police Conduct has already been urged to investigate – by the Liberal Democrats (presumably Labour leader Keir Starmer has been asleep at the wheel again).
But the request is unlikely to be honoured because the IOPC usually investigates only the most serious cases, such as those involving a death or serious injury following contact with the police, and complaints can only be made by someone who has directly witnessed an incident or is directly affected by it.
Nevertheless, it seems the police will be forced to explain themselves as legal action is being initiated by others including the Good Law Project.
This Writer wonders if Sue Gray is frantically re-writing her report, that is due to be released to the public tomorrow (May 25), according to some sources.
Our predominantly right-wing media are telling us that Johnson is in no danger of being removed by his own Conservative MPs.
It seems they are hoping that public outrage at this flagrant abuse of his government’s own rules by the prime minister who announced them to the public will have peaked.
But, being Tories, they probably aren’t counting the human cost of Covid-19 and the effect this has had. Johnson was partying with his colleagues at a time when people were dying alone because he had ordered that their relatives and friends were not allowed to be with them at the end.
That causes the kind of pain that doesn’t go away when it is politically expedient.
And of course this is new evidence for the Commons Privileges Committee, that will investigate whether Johnson lied to Parliament about attending parties.
If he did, then the rules will demand his resignation. And this evidence shows – in no uncertain terms – that he did lie.
If he had any integrity at all he would resign now and save us all the annoyance of waiting for it. But his past behaviour tells us that he doesn’t, so he won’t.
Photographs cast doubt on Boris Johnson’s claims he was unaware of rule-breaking. | ITV National News
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You go for Klimt but you get Munch: Matt Hancock’s social distance-breaking kiss was compared to Klimt’s ‘The Kiss’ but apparently the colour makes it more reminiscent of Munch’s ‘The Scream’. Many women may understand that sensation.
Isn’t it odd that arrangements can be made to leak images of an embarrassing Cabinet minister in a compromising situation – but it’s impossible to find the culprit(s)?
Someone apparently used a mobile phone to take images of then-Health Secretary Matt Hancock kissing his long-time friend and then-aide Gina Coladangelo, from CCTV camera images taken at the Department of Health on May 6, 2021.
It has been alleged that the camera had to be moved in order to be able to take the image, although it would be beyond This Writer’s powers to secure proof of whether that was true.
The images were handed to The Sun the following month and Hancock resigned as Health Secretary on June 27. He subsequently separated from his wife, with whom he has three children, and moved in with Ms Coladangelo.
It was one of those instances in which the end justified the means; Hancock was a disgrace as Health Secretary, presiding over many tens of thousands of preventable Covid-19 deaths because he was more interested in handing huge contracts to Tory cronies for equipment they were never going to supply. And did the government ever get any of that money back?
But it is also true that someone breached the security of a government department, and it was right that a criminal investigation should have been launched – although I question why the Information Commissioner’s Office carried it out and not the police.
Logically, the location of the security office to which the CCTV cameras feed was sent would have been known. And the names of personnel staffing that office would also have been known. So only a small number of people could have been suspects.
I wonder whether they were employed by a private security firm? If so, that’s another black mark against the privatisation that the Tories love so much.
The ICO said checks of mobile phones owned by the suspects revealed no evidence of relevant CCTV footage. Did they contain other footage, then? What are these security people doing with images taken from cameras – and is taking images off camera footage a widespread practice?
This Writer’s experience suggests law enforcement agencies are able to find evidence, even if it has been erased from a mobile phone’s memory, so I wonder whether any of the suspects had a new phone? Wouldn’t that be suspicious? It’s possible the phone used to take the image(s) was left with The Sun, isn’t it?
It seems there were a few avenues of investigation to explore – but it also seems that the political will to find the culprits simply wasn’t there.
Maybe I’m doing the ICO a disservice. Maybe we simply haven’t been told about every stage of the investigation.
Or maybe those responsible for leaking the image(s) served their purpose and that’s why they have been able to disappear without a trace? Nothing would surprise This Writer, as far as Boris Johnson’s government is concerned.
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Voting: did either of these constituents bring photo ID to the polling station?
A Tory plan to restrict voting in general elections to people who have very specific forms of identification has been overturned in the House of Lords – after a Tory suggested an alternative.
Peers decided to widen the range of documents a person could present to get a ballot paper, saying the limited range suggested by the Tory government was too restrictive,
Conservative peer – and former minister – Lord Willetts said documents including library cards and workplace or student ID cards should be added to the list of approved forms of ID because government plans for people without approved ID to get a free photo card from their council would be expensive.
He expressed concern that “hundreds of voters per constituency” could be turned away from polling stations at the next election.
“Imagine if the outcome of the next election is a modest majority… where throughout the day the media story has been voters being turned away from polling stations,” he said.
“That seems to me a very significant political and constitutional risk that does need to be taken into account if this measure is introduced.”
The point is a good one, although it fails to appreciate that the Tories want to introduce voter ID because they are losing voters and fear that, soon, they will only be able to win elections by ensuring that supporters of other parties – who may not have, or be able to afford, the prescribed forms of identification – can’t vote.
Trials in 2018 – in just five constituencies – led to 3,981 potential voters being turned away because they didn’t have the right ID (which isn’t the same as saying they were trying to commit fraud, of course).
Using that as an average figure, if the proposed restrictions had been applied across the UK, more than half a million people would have been denied their constitutional right. And that’s just in local elections that have a lower turnout than general elections.
If applied to general elections, it is thought that between one million and 3,5 million voters would be disenfranchised,
Let’s remember that the total number of voter fraud allegations in the 2017 general election was 28 – of which This Writer seems to recall only one was proved,
The list of those who would be turned away from polling stations includes young people, those with disabilities, ethnic minority communities, homeless people and transgender and gender non-conforming people, none of whom are normally expected to vote Conservative.
More than 40 charities, campaign groups and academics have called on the government to scrap its voter ID plan, including the Electoral Reform Society, Age UK, the RNIB, the Salvation Army, the British Youth Council, Stonewall, Operation Black Vote, Liberty, the National Union of Students and St Mungo’s.
The Tory government has ignored their concerns.
The cost to the public purse of preventing perfectly law-abiding voters from kicking the Tories out of office is projected to be £180 million per decade – £18 million a year,
Bear in mind that this plan will create a two-tier election system in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, with some elections banning those without ID, and others remaining open and free.
Two sets of rules about how people take part would apply. Some people would be certain to become confused and fail to take ID – if they had it – meaning they would be excluded from voting in the Westminster election.
Other measures in the Tories’ corrupt Elections Bill – I call it the Voter Restriction Bill – include banning party campaigners from handling postal votes, and stopping people from collecting postal votes from people who are unable to get to post boxes and handing them in.
But the 15-year limit on overseas electors in UK general elections would be removed – to allow Tory donors to continue participating in elections.
The good news is that, as with their decision to upset plans in Priti Patel’s Nationality and Borders Bill, peers have made their changes close to the end of the current Parliamentary session.
This means Boris Johnson and his cronies must now decide whether to accept a compromise or risk losing their Bill altogether if “Parliamentary ping-pong” between the Commons and the Lords continues and their differences are unresolved when the session ends.
Let’s hope that happens and this Tory assault on democracy can be killed.
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Boris Johnson has suffered another blow to his authority after the police announced that they are reconsidering whether to investigate a Christmas party at Downing Street on December 15, 2020.
The change of heart came after a new image of Johnson himself taking part (he was reading quiz questions out in a transmission to monitor screens in another office) with three aides next to him, some wearing tinsel, a bottle of some sort of alcoholic beverage and a ripped-open packet of crisps clearly visible on the table in the foreground.
Johnson himself said during Prime Minister’s Questions that he would not refer the photograph to the police for reconsideration of their decision not to investigate the party; he claimed that the event had already been submitted for investigation.
But This Site argued that this new evidence cast a different interpretation on the party and Johnson’s part in it – and this was enough to justify reappraising it.
The Metropolitan Police seem to agree – with the argument if not with me personally – I can’t claim the Cressida Dick reads This Site religiously. Indeed, with London Mayor Sadiq Khan ready to strip her of her job if she does not improve the Met’s reputation pronto, she’s probably just pulling out all the stops to show she’s doing the best job she can.
Detectives have even applied a codename to their investigation: Operation Hillman.
Adding the December 15 party to those under investigation should not make much difference to Johnson in any event – he is already expected to be questioned over his part in some of the other 12 parties that are being investigated already.
So is his wife Carrie. As somebody who is not connected with government, what was she doing around the government offices in Downing Street, anyway?
Besides the emailed questionnaires, that are going to more than 50 people, the police are examining more than 500 documents and 300 images gathered by Cabinet Office secretary Sue Gray during her inquiry.
They have confirmed that they will be requesting further information from the Cabinet Office and will approach more people if they become identified as having participated.
And they may even be investigating Johnson for another crime in the near future: bribery.
The Labour Party has demanded that the Met should make inquiries about the money Johnson received from Lord Brownlow for the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat, as he appears to have asked for the Tory donor to approve spending while also suggesting that he would take action on Brownlow’s ‘Great Exhibition’ project.
The Met is said to be considering Labour’s evidence.
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UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was momentarily blindsided when a Labour MP challenged him with brand-new allegations about him attending 2020 Christmas parties, during Prime Minister’s Questions on February 9, 2022.
Here’s the moment when Fabian Hamilton, MP for Leeds North East, brought the matter to Johnson’s attention:
He was referring to this photo:
How is Mr Hamilton “completely in error”? Johnson may not be “surrounded” by alcohol and food, but there is quite clearly an open bottle of what looks like champagne on the table in front of him, along with a packet of crisps that has been torn open in the way that happens at social events when many people are invited to dip in and take some.
And there’s definitely one person wearing tinsel.
It really does look “a lot like one of the Christmas parties that [Johnson] told us never happened”.
So… perhaps Johnson was mistaken in his answer. And of course he did not respond to the thrust of the question.
That’s okay – he was given an opportunity to correct the record only minutes later, courtesy of Labour’s Gerald Jones:
“That event already has been submitted for investigation,” Johnson spluttered, after stuttering several times (a sure ‘tell’ that he was trying to mislead us all).
Has it?
The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg wasn’t so sure when she discussed it on Politics Live, a few minutes later. She said Cabinet Office secretary Sue Gray, who had carried out Johnson’s investigation (not an independent one), had chosen not to refer it to the police.
But this is a photo of the prime minister, in a party situation, at Christmas 2020 – and finding such evidence was exactly the purpose of the Gray investigation. If she did not pass this evidence of criminal activity on to the police, then she was derelict in her duty.
Gray’s interim report is vague about this. It states: “The Metropolitan Police has now confirmed that as a result of information provided by the Cabinet Office investigation team, as well as assessments made by Metropolitan Police officers, they are investigating the events on the dates set out above with the exception of the gatherings on:
• 15 May 2020
• 27 November 2020
• 10 December 2020
• 15 December 2020.”
It does not explain whether all the information Gray had received had been passed on to the police; it does not explain whether Gray herself chose to tell the police which events to investigate; and it does not explain whether the police made that decision.
In any case, it seems unlikely that Sue Gray even had the image (above) to pass on at the time she discussed these events with the police, as it has only just become public, according to Pippa Crerar in The Mirror, where the story of this new development was broken.
So it seems clear that this new evidence should indeed be passed to the police, who should reconsider whether to add the Christmas Quiz of December 15, 2020 to the 12 events they are already investigating.
If they don’t, even more serious criticisms will be made about Metropolitan Police bias and the suitability of Cressida Dick, who is an alumnus of Balliol College, Oxford, along with Boris Johnson, to continue in her role.
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Boozy Johnson: this is the image everybody is using to illustrate the story about Boris Johnson being pictured with a beer at his birthday party in the Cabinet Office on June 19, 2020 – while the rest of us were stuck in our homes on lockdown. It was actually taken in 2019.
The lies keep being found out, don’t they?
After Boris Johnson was revealed to have attended a birthday party for him in the Cabinet Office on June 19, 2020, when the UK was locked down and all indoor social gatherings were illegal, Downing Street defended him.
“He was there for less than 10 minutes,” a spokeswoman said.
It has now been alleged that Sue Gray has handed the police an image of Johnson holding a can of Estrella beer, taken towards the end of that party, when few people were there, and strangely Downing Street suddenly has nothing to say.
The picture was, apparently, taken by Johnson’s official taxpayer-funded photographer who was said to be documenting the event.
So it seems logical for the police to call in Andrew Parsons (the photographer) and check the data on his camera to find out when the images were taken and how long Johnson was really at the event.
Meanwhile, claims by MPs like Conor Burns that Johnson was “ambushed by a cake” are being disowned – Johnson said he didn’t have one and it seems none of the 300 party images Ms Gray has handed to the police show any cake at all.
Downing Street may be tight-lipped about the situation but former Tory schools minister Nick Gibb hasn’t; he’s the latest MP to submit a letter of “no confidence” in Johnson to the chair of their backbench 1922 committee.
Writing in the Telegraphhe said his constituents were “furious about the double standards” and that “to restore trust, we need to change the prime minister”.
He said Covid restrictions imposed by Johnson were “flagrantly disregarded” in Downing Street, and the PM was inaccurate when, in December, he told the House of Commons there was no party.
“Some argue that eating a few canapes with a glass of prosecco is hardly a reason to resign. But telling the truth matters, and nowhere more so than in the House of Commons where, like a court of law, truth must be told regardless of the personal consequences,” he wrote.
His resignation call follows – and endorses – that of Aaron Bell, who on Monday (January 31) asked if Johnson took him for a fool for following the rules himself – including not hugging his family at his grandmother’s funeral, or going for a cup of tea after the service.
In a statement he published on Twitter, Mr Bell said he had written his “no confidence” letter on January 12 but only submitted it yesterday (February 4) after speaking with local councillors and candidates in his constituency:
I have submitted a letter to Sir Graham Brady.
Please see the statement attached explaining my reasons.
He said he “could not square the Prime Minister’s words from the despatch box with his previous statements to the House before Christmas. Subsequently I have also struggled to reconcile assurances given directly to me with the implications of Sue Gray’s interim findings.”
He added: “The breach of trust that the events in No 10 Downing Street represent, and the manner in which they have been handled, makes his position untenable.”
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Yes, the headline shamelessly mashes two current political news stories – and justifiably.
Last weekend, the Twitter account of a Conservative councillor from Yorkshire, Paul Nickerson, tweeted a faked photograph of Jeremy Corbyn laying a wreath next to the taxi that exploded outside Liverpool Women’s Hospital that day, with the comment: “Unsurprisingly”
No, I’m not going to post it again. If you really want to see it, read This Site’s previous story, here.
Nickerson himself has apologised for the tweet, which he claimed was a prank by others using his account, and the tweet has been deleted.
Whoever put it up, it is possible that they thought Mr Corbyn would take it on the chin. After all, he never took court action over all those anti-Semitism/terrorism support allegations, so he wasn’t likely to do anything about this, right?
In a short statement, Mr Corbyn said: “My solicitor has been notified and we are taking legal action.”
This takes me to the reference to second jobs – the hot topic among MPs, many of whom reckon they simply can’t survive on their salary of £82,000 (three times the national average) plus the most generous expenses scheme anybody can think of.
Nickerson isn’t a member of Parliament and, as far as I know, may not have a second job to supplement whatever allowance he receives as a Yorkshire councillor.
But, as I suggest in the headline, he may certainly wish he had one, if Mr Corbyn wins his case.
One does have to question whether anybody will employ him, though. Even his local Conservative group has suspended his membership.
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Big lie: Johnson cropped this image to remove the references to Nationwide’s Mutual Respect campaign, then put it out as his own expression of support for the England team.
I dare say that Clare Hepworth wasn’t the only person to have this reaction on seeing a now-infamous image in the run-up to the Ukraine-England Euro 2020 match on Saturday:
But he was being dishonest about the reasons for the picture being taken.
It wasn’t to show his support for the England football team; it was part of the Nationwide Building Society’s campaign for Mutual Respect in Football – a reaction against the rise in hate crime (under Tory governments) in recent years:
Missing context for *that* photo – instigated it seems by @AskNationwide – not Downing St – as part of their 'respect in footbal' campaign.
So why on earth would Downing St release the cropped photo on the right?
— GET A GRIP (Agent of the Deep Woke) (@docrussjackson) July 2, 2021
Well, we’ve seen that Downing Street did release that image.
Here are a few similar images, showing how Nationwide has been getting public figures to sign a huge England flag in support of Mutual Respect in Football and opposition of hate crime:
We caught up with the one and only @TheGeoffHurst, best known for scoring a hat trick in the 1966 World Cup final. Sir Geoff joined us in standing for mutual respect in football, and had a few words to say…⚽
— Nationwide Building Society (@AskNationwide) July 1, 2021
Big thanks to @Arsenal legend and @England centre back @martinkeown5 for signing his support and joining us in standing for mutual respect within football ⚽
— Nationwide Building Society (@AskNationwide) July 2, 2021
I also found a video reaction from one person, discussing what Johnson had done, who hit the nail right on the head – but it seems to have disappeared. Count yourself lucky if you don’t like extreme language because this was not only on the head but near the knuckle too.
POSTSCRIPT: Found it:
I hope a new era of morality and self respect is coming home.
There is time to build back better by rejecting the hate and division of Brand Boris.
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Laura Kuenssberg: Rather than report on deficiencies at an NHS hospital caused by Tory underfunding, she triggered a Twitter dogpile on a member of the public who challenge Boris Johnson about it.
Standards of journalism at the BBC slipped to a new low yesterday when political editor Laura Kuenssberg outed a man who challenged Boris Johnson over falling NHS standards as a “Labour activist” – triggering a Twitter dogpile on this man.
Apparently it did not matter to Ms Kuenssberg that Omar Salem was the father of a sick seven-day-old girl and had been terribly worried about his daughter’s well-being. She considered it far more important that the world should know he has campaigned for the Labour Party in the past.
Are you saying he knew about De Pfeffel’s visit, got his daughter to fake an illness and then hung around the hospital all night so that he could ambush him and trick him into lying that he wasn’t their doing a PR when the press was 10ft away? No? Then what does it matter?
Mark’s question is valid. What was Ms Kuenssberg trying to say, exactly? And if it was as he suggested, then should she not be hauled up before the BBC board and sacked on the spot?
It is not the place of any journalist – even the BBC’s political editor – to heap more stress upon the father of a sick child who is only seven days old.
Or, put more succinctly: who the hell does Kuenssberg think she is?
It seems she has not noticed that a campaign was launched earlier this week, calling for people to report the activities of those who troll innocent members of the public in exactly the way she has done.
And consider this: Even a doctor at the hospital has written about the shortfall in care there:
I was one of the doctors who met Boris Johnson today. This was a highly staged press event in a newly refurbished hospital ward at Whipps Cross hospital where the prime minister met a few select members of staff and patients. This event completely brushed over the harsh realities of this chronically underfunded, understaffed and poorly resourced hospital.
I’m so glad that Omar Salem said the things he did. He was just telling the truth about what it is like to be on the receiving end of poor staffing levels and under-resourcing.
Whipps Cross is particularly understaffed and under-resourced so people don’t get the care that they need as promptly as they need.
And this visit was not reflective of the realities of working at this hospital. Johnson was taken to the nicest ward in the hospital; there were flowers on display and classical music was playing in the background. I wish the prime minister could have seen some of the other wards, which are nothing like what he saw today. He should come on a night shift and see how everything doesn’t function at two in the morning.
There are not enough staff on any level – nursing, physiotherapy, doctors. It is just chronically understaffed. The building is falling to pieces. It is either too cold or too hot. I could go on and on.
I love medicine, but you just can’t do your job properly. You don’t have time to talk to patients or families. Everybody is really demoralised. There’s no point in complaining because you know nothing will be done.
Isn’t this exactly what Omar Salem was saying?
But Ms Kuenssberg turned it around and made it all about him being a “Labour activist”. And what does that mean, exactly?
I think she – and the BBC – has a huge amount of explaining to do.
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