The Situation in Westminster
After yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons, and the frankly shameful display put on by the Prime Minister, I feel compelled to convey my thoughts here.
The PM was asked no less than eleven questions regarding the Christmas party held at No. 10 Downing Street on the 18th of December last year, all strongly condemning the PM’s lack of affirmative action on the issue.
His opening statement addressed the video uncovered by ITV News, in which No. 10 staff are seen rehearsing a press conference. They laugh and joke about the Christmas party they attended two days prior, with the PM’s spokesperson, Allegra Stratton, mockingly stating that the party was not socially distanced, and that cheese and wine were enjoyed.
The Prime Minister said he was “furious and disgusted” at the video, and apologised to the British public for “causing offence and giving a bad impression”, not for the party itself, which he denied took place.
At last week’s PMQs, he neither confirmed nor denied whether or not there was a party, but insisted if one did take place, that all regulations will have been followed. This week, he explicitly denied the allegations, but again said that if there was a party, it would have conformed to the rules. This is impossible, as Covid rules at the time stipulated that any indoor gatherings were prohibited, and as such any party in No. 10 on the 18th of December would have been illegal.
The Prime Minister assured the House that a Cabinet Office inquiry was under way to investigate these allegations, but, as Leader of the Opposition Sir Keir Starmer MP put it, “Why doesn’t the Prime Minister end the investigation right now by just admitting it?” Indeed, the party took place under the Prime Minister’s own roof, surely he would have been able to tell if dozens of people were making merry under his nose? Perhaps his deduction skills are really that poor.
Anyone with an ounce of common sense can deduce that a party did take place when looking at available evidence, and the Prime Minister, as usual, has let the issue snowball into a potentially career-ending scandal that his lacklustre and dishonest attempts at damage control are doing little to rectify.
PMQs 08/12/21
The Prime Minister’s cowardice was on full display in yesterday’s PMQs, as was the lack of confidence his own party has in his leadership.
Fewer obsequious questions came from the Conservative benches than usual, and more than that, there were questions criticising the PM’s judgement on a number of issues, including mandatory vaccine passports, and a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing by former Tory leader Ian Duncan Smith MP.
There was an air of outrage from the opposition benches, who had to be quieted on several occasions by Speaker of the House Sir Lindsay Hoyle, as the Prime Minister gave his excuses and tried his best to shift blame to Starmer. There were cries of “how dare you?” from Labour members as the Prime Minister accused Starmer of “playing politics” with this issue.
Conversely, the House was silent as Starmer and other opposition members gave poignant examples of Brits experiencing tremendous hardship as the PM’s mates were drinking wine, un-distanced, in the PM’s own house. The most striking example was given by Rosena Allin-Khan MP, an A&E doctor who gave a first-hand account of the horrors she witnessed during the height of the pandemic in December last year. She spoke of three children who had to witness their mother’s final moments remotely through an iPad, an unthinkable tragedy. She asked the Prime Minister how he can sleep at night.
News coverage of this issue included testimonials from those brave Britons who lost family and loved ones in the days surrounding the party, and social media has been inundated with similar accounts. On the day of the Downing Street party, there were 489 recorded Covid deaths. The fact that the PM is still lying to those inconsolable citizens he is charged with protecting and representing is the reason the country is, in his words, sickened and infuriated.
The lack of care and respect exhibited by the Prime Minister has shattered public confidence in him and his Government, and it was all entirely avoidable. It is insulting, not only to those who lost loved ones, but to all who have been affected by this virus.
Party Animals
The party on the 18th is not the only one rumoured to have taken place in Downing Street during the lockdowns.
The Mirror reports that the PM gave a speech at a packed leaving party for one of his aides on the 27th of November 2020, and Dominic Cummings tweeted that another party took place in the PM’s flat on the 13th of that month, the same day he resigned the PM’s service. Cummings also alluded to further parties in the PM’s flat in his tweet, a claim that has as yet been unsubstantiated.
There seems to be a culture of rule-breaking in No. 10, that those who reside within, by virtue of the fact that they make the rules, they are therefore unbeholden to them. The spokesperson central to the leaked clip, Allegra Stratton (who, like the PM, has a history of failing upwards in her career), resigned her position in the wake of this scandal. She made a tearful statement to the press outside her house, wherein she apologised, again not for the party itself, but for essentially making the Prime Minister look bad.
Stratton has made an excellent scapegoat for the Prime Minister, and her resignation will not have been unhappy news for him. However, it was the Prime Minister’s house the party took place in, not Stratton’s, it was the Prime Minister who responded to the allegations with a string of continuing lies that his front bench has been pressured into repeating, not Stratton, and it is the Prime Minister who is most suitable to resign over this issue, not Stratton.
Resignation Rightfully Forthcoming?
During yesterday’s PMQs, SNP Westminster Leader Ian Blackford MP said that the Prime Minister’s only remaining moral duty to the public is to resign, to cheers of approval from the opposition benches. Blackford put it to Tory members that they should consider the Prime Minister’s position, and decide whether or not he is the man to lead them in the next general election. He said that if the PM does not resign of his own volition, then he must be removed, and he urged Conservative members to do so.
As they were shouting Blackford down, Speaker Hoyle warned the Tory front bench that the public is questioning this Parliament at present, and urged them to remain calm and not to exacerbate their party’s tenuous position.
Blackford went on after PMQs to raise a point of order, saying that he had been informed by unnamed members of the cabinet that the Prime Minister is indeed unfit to lead the party and the nation, and for the good of both, should resign. This confirms what was said in the last post on this blog, and reinforces the notion that Tory confidence in the Prime Minister is collapsing, if it hasn’t collapsed already. Recent polling also backs up Blackford’s position, with a majority of Brits believing a party did take place, and also that the Prime Minister should resign as a result.
Plan B
The Prime Minister is desperate to shift public attention away from this issue, repeatedly referencing that the party in question (which he confusingly denies the existence of) happened a year ago, and as such should no longer be of importance.
There were no Government spokespeople on morning news programmes yesterday, with Health Secretary Sajid Javid MP cancelling his spot on BBC’s Breakfast show. The Prime Minister was obviously terrified of his ministers cracking under pressure on this issue after the video was leaked before he whipped them into his preferred talking points.
Also, during PMQs (a part of public scrutiny even he had the decency to attend this time), he had the gall to suggest that Keir Starmer and the Labour party has confused the public on Covid restrictions more than he and his Government’s many, many scandals relating to breaches of said restrictions.
After PMQs, and after a cabinet meeting in No. 10, the Prime Minister announced that due to the Omicron variant’s high rate of transmission and multiplication, the UK would be moving to ‘Plan B’: working from home, if possible, is again officially recommended, face masks are legally required in public places, and NHS Covid passes are mandated in crowded areas (nightclubs, etc.). These restrictions will officially come into effect in a weeks time. Please do consult official Government guidelines for complete instructions.
Whilst I am in favour of this move, and the Government’s overall response to the Covid-19 pandemic, especially the vaccine and booster programme, has been better than most (although more could always still have been done), this scandal will do nothing but damage public confidence in these new restrictions. If the Prime Minister’s own staff (and by many accounts, the Prime Minister himself) can throw crowded parties on Government premises, in flagrant breach of Covid regulations with little to no repercussions, how does he expect the public to do the same?
It is vital that the public follow regulation to the letter if lives are to be saved and this virus defeated, but the Prime Minister’s actions are a far cry from what he preaches, and his catastrophic failure to lead by example will damage public confidence in these new measures, leading to a needless loss of life.
What Boris Johnson Is
Ending on a more personal note, I know what kind of man Boris Johnson is. I have known and dealt with them all my life, through school, university, and my career; certain upper-middle class men who believe that because everything they have ever wanted has been a question, or a persuasive word, or a discreet payment away, that rules do not apply to them. They expect to be above criticism, and have, for the most part, succeeded.
Men like this often live out their lives consequence-free, and this is exactly the vibe I detect from Johnson. There are several of these distasteful men (and they have mostly been men) I have known in my life whom Johnson is a carbon copy of. His actions and statements are insufferably predictable, and his attitude and demeanour are infuriatingly familiar to me. That one of these men is in the position of utmost power and trust in our nation is a source of great shame, shame that I suspect and hope Tory MPs are starting to realise.
The incompetence of this Prime Minister has been on full display in recent months, and I believe every MP in Westminster sees it too. Opposition MPs are calling for his resignation in force, and as we know, several front bench Tories have completely lost faith.
I can only hope that Tory members who recognise the danger this Prime Minister poses swallow their pride, send their letters to the 1922 Committee, and do right by the people of this nation.
I apologise for the fourth consecutive article on this blog that has focused mostly on UK politics, but everything happening right now, you must admit, is pretty interesting stuff. This blog will hopefully return to more internationally focused content soon.
stay safe
/e
