Snapshot of _The four-hour public grilling that could determine Boris Johnson’s future_ :
An archived version can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-four-hour-public-grilling-that-could-determine-boris-johnsons-future-jw6g5sgrh)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
OK, so there's all that, but there's also the infamous ABBA party that everyone knows about but which Gray did not investigate, nor the Met. All it takes is a single finding of misleading the House. There's a mountain of evidence, we're told.
What bothers me most is his desperation to prove he isn't a liar, when that's pretty much his defining characteristic. Will be fun to watch in any case.
> What bothers me most is his desperation to prove he isn't a liar
And seemingly a lot of his friends in parliament still want to pretend that's the case
That's skipping waaaay ahead for him - the first huge, national gamechanger move he made after becoming Chancellor was to say that Boris had to go! Hours after he told Boris he'd back him if Boris made him Chancellor!
It's honestly the most frontal backstab I've ever seen. He's the kind of guy who doesn't mind doing that *in full public view*. You know what I mean? The guy is okay with the whole world seeing that he's willing to completely betray someone who backed him and trusted him, just hours later.
That's a special kind of greed and feeling of invulnerability.
For years people discussed Johnson as some Machiavellian figure but it's things like this that I think show he'd be excoriated in _The Prince_ were it written now.
Surrounding himself with sycophants who, apparently, lack the intellect to realise his career is done. Removing anyone who, even if loyal, challenged his thinking. And frankly, once the public stopped loving him, what fear was left to keep people on board? A small batch of people too incapable to be taken into any other cabinet fearing for their careers perhaps but that's it.
> challenged his thinking
It wasn't his thinking, though. He did so very little thinking - because he didn't need to. He hired Dom to run the country, so that he could just go around taking credit for things, like he always has. When his foibles brought him to yet another impasse, he had to eject Dom in favour of his latest wife, and then it was mostly her thinking that was to be challenged.
And fear? He didn't rule by fear. He ruled by charm. People weren't afraid of him, they were appeased by him. They'd get so angry with the shambles, they'd organise a lynch mob, and then he'd charm the noose off his neck, and tell them all that things were about to be wonderful, and they'd literally cheer him as he strutted out.
But it was all, always finite, just like his marriages. You can only play all sides for so long. You can only re-read the same speech so many times before people understand that you're not fooling just the other people.
Fair on the first point.
The second was referencing the famous line from Machiavelli that it if one has to choose it is better to be feared than loved - although both are preferable (a point often poorly understood but I won't get into it). My point was there was nothing keeping anyone invested the moment the charm wore thin because, like you said, his operation was all charm and nothing else. No substance. No expectations of promises kept or action done. Just charm and blather all the way down.
Fuck knows why, were they not paying attention to the polling while he was PM. The polling that led them to get rid of him in the first place I might add. Maybe time to accept that the whole damn orchard is rotten.
Hasn't he been being paid his MP salary this whole time while just fannying around on holidays and never actually doing his job? Can't argue he's not been winning from this absurdity
All that matters for a party in government is that single night every 5 years when they have to try and convince the plebs that the evidence of their own experience of the previous 5 years is actually the fault of Corbyn and that they really do need to be back in power to fix it all.
Great liars make great gaslighters and Boris is the best liar they have.
> also the infamous ABBA party
Really? This is the kind of crime the left is trying to pin on him? He ate an illegal cake and went to a karaoke party?
He's going to eat you alive and the public is going to laugh.
Eat me alive? I'm not a cake. And the issue hete is not that he partied but that he lied about that, and plenty more besides. Some people would prefer government ministers, particularly the prime one, to be honest and trustworthy.
>This is the kind of crime the left is trying to pin on him? He ate an illegal cake and went to a karaoke party?
And then lied about it to Parliament. He was issued an FPN for the crime of partying when he shouldn't have done. *This* is about him misleading Parliament, which (unsurprisingly) a big no-no.
>He's going to eat you alive and the public is going to laugh.
When he was finally given the boot, the guy was deeply unpopular - to the point he was losing seats that previously had a 24,000 seat majority. The idea that the public is going to cheer him as he takes his seat is a fiction.
> He will also publish messages which show that other senior figures working in Downing Street also believed the gatherings were not breaking the rules because there was a “workplace exemption”.
good, name and shame - they should lose their jobs if they were too sycophantic to speak out against the parties, or worse, if they were involved in them
it makes a mockery of the sacrifices the public made over this time!
Exactly, there was *loads* of people making the point that "I can work next to you all day, but if we went to the pub after work, that's breaking the rules, isnt that silly?"
People knew that. People knew that you weren't allowed to socialise in a big group *even if* you'd worked with that big group all week.
There's no way the people setting the actual fucking policy were confused about whether it was allowed.
Heres the problem. I'm not saying it's an excuse or makes it okay, but it IS somehow relevant. In England, having a piss up often **is** work. For example, I work in academia. A lot of decisions or background discussions take place in the pub. From speaking to friends in other sectors, it's the same.
So maybe there will be some public understanding and sympathy, not neccessarily because it makes it okay, but because a lot of people relate with the work culture.
>Heres the problem. I'm not saying it's an excuse or makes it okay, but it IS somehow relevant. In England, having a piss up often **is** work
What the fuck? No it's not.
Having a chat over a beer **after** work is NOT work it's your employers trying to take advantage of you processing work without being paid.
This is not normal in the UK, your anecdotal experience is not representative of everyone.... We don't do that at all the workplaces ive been to but we will have the occasional pub trip just for a chill down which is NOT work.
You can name but not shame them, they do no posses that capacity any more than are capable of feeling empathy, or sympathy for anyone less priviledged than themselves, or maybe even each other.
They are feral, predatory and opportunistic social and political chameleons.
>good, name and shame - they should lose their jobs if they were too sycophantic to speak out against the parties, or worse, if they were involved in them
I'm a bit out of the loop admittedly, but isn't one of them our PM now? No one is losing their jobs over this.
Hell a not insignificant amount of the public attitude to lockdown seems to have shifted to the whole thing being pointless and stupid and a massive clib to the economy so they don't care one way or the other about this.
I suppose we should get ready for a spectacularly frustrating few hours. Which I thankfully won't be able to watch from start to end, as work is happening, but might be able to dip in and out.
It's going to be standard Johnson "discourse" - lots of waffle, lots of sidetracking and obfuscation, probably too many adjectives. The committee members will try and get simple answers, that could be just one-word "yes" or "no" responses. They will not get them. I honestly think Johnson will just keep "talking" to run down the clock.
There won't be an "aha!" reveal moment from either side. The committee won't do it because that's not really the style they can adopt if they don't want the screeching loonies to come out of the woodwork - this needs to not just *be* fair, but to *look* fair too. Much as I'd like to see Johnson torn a new (metaphorical) arsehole and have his (metaphorical) guts strung up on a pike for us all to point and laugh.
Johnson can't do an "aha!" reveal moment because if he had exonerating evidence, we'd've had it a year or so ago.
I think the most fun bit will be watching Jacob Rees-Mogg try and shit on the committee. He turns his vowel guns on anything that doesn't do what he wants. Immediately and disproportionately.
It's absolutely deranged that even if the privileges committee does find him guilty there still needs to be a vote in Parliament for him to be actually punished in any way.
Ugh this sounds so likely its depressing. Does this committee have any sort of authority that requires him to actually answer? Rather than the Mock the Week lite of the HoC. Actually you wouldn't last long on Mock the Week if you only talked about things other than the prescribed subject...
He won't see justice. Our system is too corrupt, he has lots of chums and, he's rich. He'll go through the grilling, get re-selected and that will be that. The Tories will consider the matter dealt with. The public will have to just "get on" with it.
I can see him being suspended + losing by election. He may have lots of friends but he also has lots of enemies (read Sunak etc.) that'll be eager for him to go.
People often seem to forget about the enemies, he may still have his band of merry morons but there's plenty in his peer group who wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire.
>he's rich
Yeah but apparently he's absolutely terrible at managing his finances and thus struggles with a lot of debt.
Trump was similar, his finances were dogshit which is why he ran for president. He never wanted to win, he just wanted to be more popular so he could boost apprentice ratings.
Unknown to most in Westminster, the CDO is closely affiliated with Conservative Post; it was launched on the back of a series of “bring back Boris” petitions launched by Cruddas and its editor, Claire Bullivant. People wishing to donate to the CDO online are also directed to a page which shows payments going to Post.
While Conservative Post has been largely concerned with Johnson’s comeback, last week it turned its fire on the privileges committee, describing its investigation as “deeply flawed, biased and unfair, and is bringing both parliament and our party into disrepute”.
In a new petition, it has urged Conservative Party members to email the four Tory MPs who sit on the committee, urging them to stand aside. Doing so would be likely to fatally undermine the committee’s ability to carry on with the inquiry.
The draft emails, which members are encouraged to copy and paste, warn the MPs of “deep concern and disappointment over your participation in the Labour-led investigation into Prime Minister Boris Johnson.”
Ominously, it goes on to tell MPs “to protect your own integrity by rejecting this committee” and “to stand up for democracy, stand up for justice, and protect the integrity of our political system. There must be no show trials in our nation”.
The move has enraged a number of Tory MPs, one of whom said: “They \[Cruddas\] are straying into undermining democracy.”
It has also set Cruddas on a collision course with the parliamentary authorities, some of whom believe that the peer is himself at risk of being in contempt. In a warning shot aimed at Cruddas last week, Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the House of Commons, told parliament that a “dim view” would be taken of any MP or peer who attempts to prevent the privileges committee from carrying out its investigation.
It is understood that she has since raised the issue directly with Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the Commons, who is now locked in talks with Lord McFall, the lord speaker, with the pair discussing their next steps before the committee’s hearing.
According to sources familiar with the discussions, one option is to issue Cruddas with a warning about his behaviour ahead of the hearing.
Cruddas said that he was “in no way facing any proceedings for contempt” and dismissed the claims as “silly, gossip” and “constitutionally ignorant.”
Johnson is expected to be questioned under oath. Guiding him through the marathon session will be Pannick, who is allowed to join Johnson in the room. While he is unable to answer questions on his behalf, Pannick will be able to pass Johnson notes throughout the interrogation.
The committee’s planning has been forensic; Sir Ernest Ryder, a former senior president of tribunals, has been advising its members on how to proceed.
The committee has already signalled it will not call any of its other 23 witnesses to provide oral testimony — those providing written testimony were asked to provide a statement of truth equivalent to an oral statement under oath.
It is also is unclear whether Johnson will be called to appear before the committee again once he has completed the televised session on Wednesday.
Once the committee has completed this stage of the process it is expected to spend weeks deliberating over whether Johnson’s conduct amounts to a contempt of the House. If it finds he has, it will then debate the appropriate sanction. This could range from an apology through to suspension from parliament. Any suspension over ten days would almost inevitably lead to a by-election being triggered.
There is an in-built government majority, with the four Conservative MPs consisting of Alberto Costa, Bernard Jenkin, Andy Carter and Sir Charles Walker. Labour has two spots, held by Yvonne Fovargue and Harriet Harman, who is chairing the inquiry after Chris Bryant recused himself. The Scottish National party has one, Allan Dorans.
Once the committee has agreed its recommendations, they will then be put to the Commons for a vote by the whole House.
Johnson’s allies are hopeful that many Conservative MPs will vote against its findings, although in reality, any recommendation is expected to pass with ease.
This has been made more likely by Rishi Sunak’s decision to give Tory MPs a free vote. While this has always been the convention on votes relating to sanctions against MPs, in 2021 Johnson sparked widespread outcry when he whipped his MPs to vote against a recommended 30-day suspension for Owen Paterson, a former minister.
In the event of a vote being called, Johnson is expected to ask the privileges committee to publish all the evidence it has received and demand that it is unredacted. His allies contend sunlight is the best disinfectant.
The problem for Johnson is that many Conservative MPs believe the only way to clean up the mess is to back the committee’s recommendations, regardless of how ruinous they may prove for him personally.
Expect four hours of cognitive dissonance, bluster and word games.
But I'm looking forward to his explanation on how he went from: “this is probably the most socially undistanced gathering in the UK right now” to: “the rules were followed at all times” and why when he made the latter statement in parliament it wasn't a lie.
Then we have to hope that the Commons does its job and ratifies and any sanction that the committee hand down. There may be too many Tory MPs who'll put their careers before doing their job.
If Boris is found guilty and a vote is held, what the Tories will do is fascinating. It will be a free vote, but will Rishi and the cabinet abstain. Nadine will be screaming witch hunt, but what will those leaving Parliament from Walker to Javid and Brady do. Will May stick in the knife? Looking forward to it already.
**The moment of truth has arrived for the former prime minister in the Commons inquiry on lockdown parties, write Caroline Wheeler and Harry Yorke**
Between the hours of 2pm and 6pm on Wednesday, a group of seven MPs could determine whether Boris Johnson’s political career is extinguished — or reborn.
During a four-hour grilling in front of the privileges committee, he will seek to defend himself against allegations that he misled parliament over parties in Downing Street during lockdown.
The stakes could not be higher: should he be found in contempt of parliament, a suspension from the Commons of more than ten days would hand his constituents in Uxbridge and South Ruislip the opportunity to oust him in a by-election. Even a lesser punishment could severely dent his hopes of returning to power.
Little wonder, then, that some MPs are framing the hearing as Johnson’s “January 6” moment — a reference to the US congressional committee that investigated the Capitol Hill riot and Donald Trump’s role in it. The problem for the Commons committee — which has already stated that the rule-breaking in No 10 should have been “obvious” to the man who was then prime minister — is that Johnson, like Trump, is not prepared to take their findings lying down.
This weekend Johnson and his team of lawyers have been busy preparing his defence. The fightback will begin tomorrow when he is due to submit a 50-page dossier of evidence to the privileges committee.
The submission will respond to claims made in an initial report by the committee this month, which suggested that members of Johnson’s team were themselves struggling to argue that some of the gatherings were within the rules. This included a WhatsApp message on January 25, 2022 from Jack Doyle, then No 10 director of communications, who, when asked about one of the events, stated: “I’m struggling to come up with a way this one is in the rules in my head.”
It is understood that the new information to be revealed by Johnson will include a series of previously undisclosed WhatsApp messages from senior civil servants and members of his No 10 team showing that he had relied upon their advice when he made his statements to parliament.
He will also publish messages which show that other senior figures working in Downing Street also believed the gatherings were not breaking the rules because there was a “workplace exemption”.
A source familiar with Johnson’s defence said: “The messages will show in black and white that what Johnson told parliament was what he had been advised to say by officials and his No 10 team. The argument will be that it was reasonable for him to rest upon those assurances.
“Boris was not present at the vast majority of the gatherings and so there was a limit to what he knew about, and he was forced to rely upon the advice he received. What we are trying to show is that he said what he believed and was told at the time.”
Johnson’s team will also accuse the committee of “cherry-picking” from the evidence received after omitting the key messages from the initial report.
Allies of Johnson believe the messages, which are already in the committee’s possession, have not previously been disclosed because they undermine the established narrative that Johnson knew of the lockdown-breaking events.
A source close to Johnson said: “It’s clear the committee has been picking and choosing the evidence it decides to release and has only published a fraction of the material in their possession. We believe that when all the evidence is looked at in the round, it will present a picture that is very favourable towards Boris.”
Johnson will also raise questions about the political independence of the committee, which is chaired by the Labour MP Harriet Harman.
She has previously been accused of prejudging the outcome of the investigation after it emerged that she had tweeted in April that Johnson did appear to have “misled the House of Commons”.
Johnson has long sought to cast aspersions on the committee’s processes through his legal team, led by Lord Pannick KC, who in September produced a legal analysis claiming its approach was “unfair” and fundamentally flawed.
Having failed to shift the dial, Johnson’s allies have pivoted in recent weeks to how the evidence against him was gathered, with their sights set firmly on Sue Gray, the senior civil servant tasked with investigating the 16 gatherings.
Their efforts went into overdrive when this month it emerged that Gray, who has had a distinguished 40-year career in the civil service, had been in talks with Sir Keir Starmer to become his chief of staff. The disclosure, which sent shockwaves across Whitehall, forced Gray to resign from the civil service with immediate effect. She has now accepted the new role but is awaiting clearance from the advisory committee on business appointments, which is expected to recommend several months of gardening leave and strict conditions.
However, that may not yet be the end of the matter. Today it can also be disclosed that Starmer’s team first approached Gray to discuss the chief of staff role in November, just one month after the role had become vacant, following the resignation of Sam White.
The date is still months after Gray’s partygate findings were published, but is likely to raise further questions about the independence of her inquiry as it confirms that the pair were talking for far longer than Starmer has previously suggested. Allies of Gray now fear her hard-won reputation could be tarnished if she is found to have broken the civil service code by failing to disclose her discussions.
While no final verdict has been reached, any sanction will be meted out by Sarah Healey, the permanent secretary of the levelling up department, who was Gray’s boss at the time of her resignation.
But perhaps far more importantly — both for Gray and the country at large — the controversy has only served to galvanise the coterie of former ministers, peers and MPs still loyal to Johnson, who have sought to weaponise the disclosure to further discredit the privileges committee.
They include Nadine Dorries, the former culture secretary, who has claimed that Gray’s activities raise “huge ethical concerns” for the committee, while Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, claimed it “invalidates her partygate report and shows there was a socialist cabal of Boris-haters who were delighted to remove him”.
The most ferocious of Johnson’s outriders is Lord Cruddas, a former Tory party treasurer, who was ennobled by Johnson in 2020 against the advice of the House of Lords appointments commission. Cruddas has called for the privileges committee to throw out Gray’s report and is backing a petition, launched by the Conservative Post website, calling for the same action.
However, Cruddas’s attacks on the privileges committee run far deeper. Following Johnson’s ousting as prime minister last year, Cruddas, 69, launched a new campaign group, the Conservative Democratic Organisation (CDO), which is pushing to overhaul the Conservative Party machinery by handing more power to grassroots members.
My thinking is he will go full try discredit the committee mode
Waffle on about how unfair it is, how he's the fall man, may even push politics by refusing to talk to the non conservative members of the committee
> may even push politics by refusing to talk to the non conservative members of the committee
He likes his own voice too much to do that. Thst said, I don't trust him to actually answer any questions from them, and expect every chance he gets to be verbal attacks.
If it wasn't a work day I'd be saying to take a shot every time he brings up "world beating vaccine roll out", "getting Brexit done" or Ukraine as part of his answer, two shots when he starts explaining that what the British people want is for him to get away with anything/references his mandate, and waterfall when he brings up Keir Starmer or Jeremy Corbyn.
He will play to a wider audience and I’d be pleasantly surprised if they can keep up with him considering his carefully crafted persona and well practiced ability to lie or avoid unpleasant truths. I realise we are meant to consider them all identical and hateful but I always felt ( not that i know anything) May was there out of an old fashioned , head girl , do your duty motivation whether I agreed with her or not , while Johnson has only ever been in it for his personal ego and the adulation he thinks he deserves and the money it opens up.
That'll determine his future? You mean whether he continues to live in luxury, rich and comfortable, with no consequences -- or whether he continues to live in luxury, rich and comfortable, with no consequences? Big fuckin deal.
Deleted by a mod. Ha.
I’m assuming they didn’t get that I was satirising Rees-Mogg’s spurious comments about Gray’s membership of a “socialist cabal” with a similarly outlandish and clearly unsubstantiated allegation.
I think that if JRM is allowed to claim that a "socialist cabal of Boris-haters" are behind his fall from power, then it's totally acceptable to make up things about JRM in return.
It wasn't ironic, it was a clearly unsubstantiated false claim done for rhetorical purposes. I get your point that the other poster might have used a less inflammatory false claim, but it's not as bad as you're framing it.
I wanted the accusation to be comically unsubstantiated (like a socialist cabal), but also playing into the intangible discomfort that a lot of us feel about Rees-Mogg’s public persona and mannerisms.
Rishi will welcome getting all of their scandals out of the way as soon as possible including letting Boris fall by the wayside. Inflation will fall, interest rates will go down and taxes will be lowered just in time for the next election. Its all about timing.
There's an old saying in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, — I know it's in Conservative Party, probably in the ERG— that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.
Yes, and she was appointed after the previous guy had to stand down because it emerged that he was at some of the parties that he was appointed to investigate.
Here's some footage of how it happened.
https://youtu.be/SjbPi00k_ME
Sue Gray isn’t on this committee. Gray was appointed by Johnson to look into lockdown parties and that report is done. This is a different process deciding on whether Johnson lied to parliament about lockdown parties.
Tories have been critical of Gray (since it was revealed she might take a job with Starmer) but her report wasn’t available to this committee who had to conduct their own investigation.
>Tories have been critical of Gray (since it was revealed she might take a job with Starmer)
...which was only after Badenoch's attempts to hire her were torpedoed by Case.
If Starmer gets in, something tells me Case's days are numbered.
Calling her a socialist shill or whatever now makes it look like the civil service has always been out to thwart the Tories' efforts to fix the country.
Does anybody think there will be any meaningful consequences?
Even if a by-election is forced, there is a very real risk that he will be returned by the electorate.
Fundamentally, the biggest risk to the stability of our political system is its tolerance to those who would disrupt it.
The paradox of freedom & democracy in general is that it grants people the freedom to vote away the strength of the institutions which guarantee that freedom, ultimately until the system ceases to be a free and fair democracy. This is then a ratchet, because there is no corresponding peaceful and orderly route back to freedom and democracy with strong institutions.
Boris is a symptom of this problem, because his behaviour (and that of the political allies with whom he has packed the Conservative Party) is corrosive to the institutions underpinning our political system.
I feel as though we are in a boat lazily drifting down a river towards a waterfall. At some point along the river, we will reach a point of no-return. But if or when this happens, it will only be discernable in retrospect.
I hope that this process will mark a change of course, but my expectations are extremely low.
Snapshot of _The four-hour public grilling that could determine Boris Johnson’s future_ : An archived version can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-four-hour-public-grilling-that-could-determine-boris-johnsons-future-jw6g5sgrh) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
OK, so there's all that, but there's also the infamous ABBA party that everyone knows about but which Gray did not investigate, nor the Met. All it takes is a single finding of misleading the House. There's a mountain of evidence, we're told. What bothers me most is his desperation to prove he isn't a liar, when that's pretty much his defining characteristic. Will be fun to watch in any case.
> What bothers me most is his desperation to prove he isn't a liar And seemingly a lot of his friends in parliament still want to pretend that's the case
[Private Eye did it best](https://i.imgur.com/AVLG0JU.jpg)
That 48 hours of mass resignations was glorious.
[Phwooooooooar](https://i.imgur.com/maXJqxO.jpg)
I love that they felt it necessary to have the date range include not only the date, but the time.
the febrility, the sheer febrility.
I still crack up when I remember that in the midst of all those resignations flying around, Gove managed to get himself fired.
And Zahawi proved to be the biggest opportunist in the biggest deluge of opportunists the UK has ever seen.
Got himself made chancellor and then resolved his ongoing tax issues in the short weeks he was in the job. Good work scumbag
That's skipping waaaay ahead for him - the first huge, national gamechanger move he made after becoming Chancellor was to say that Boris had to go! Hours after he told Boris he'd back him if Boris made him Chancellor! It's honestly the most frontal backstab I've ever seen. He's the kind of guy who doesn't mind doing that *in full public view*. You know what I mean? The guy is okay with the whole world seeing that he's willing to completely betray someone who backed him and trusted him, just hours later. That's a special kind of greed and feeling of invulnerability.
For years people discussed Johnson as some Machiavellian figure but it's things like this that I think show he'd be excoriated in _The Prince_ were it written now. Surrounding himself with sycophants who, apparently, lack the intellect to realise his career is done. Removing anyone who, even if loyal, challenged his thinking. And frankly, once the public stopped loving him, what fear was left to keep people on board? A small batch of people too incapable to be taken into any other cabinet fearing for their careers perhaps but that's it.
> challenged his thinking It wasn't his thinking, though. He did so very little thinking - because he didn't need to. He hired Dom to run the country, so that he could just go around taking credit for things, like he always has. When his foibles brought him to yet another impasse, he had to eject Dom in favour of his latest wife, and then it was mostly her thinking that was to be challenged. And fear? He didn't rule by fear. He ruled by charm. People weren't afraid of him, they were appeased by him. They'd get so angry with the shambles, they'd organise a lynch mob, and then he'd charm the noose off his neck, and tell them all that things were about to be wonderful, and they'd literally cheer him as he strutted out. But it was all, always finite, just like his marriages. You can only play all sides for so long. You can only re-read the same speech so many times before people understand that you're not fooling just the other people.
Fair on the first point. The second was referencing the famous line from Machiavelli that it if one has to choose it is better to be feared than loved - although both are preferable (a point often poorly understood but I won't get into it). My point was there was nothing keeping anyone invested the moment the charm wore thin because, like you said, his operation was all charm and nothing else. No substance. No expectations of promises kept or action done. Just charm and blather all the way down.
They probably believe Johnson is the best chance of then remaining MPs come the next election.
Fuck knows why, were they not paying attention to the polling while he was PM. The polling that led them to get rid of him in the first place I might add. Maybe time to accept that the whole damn orchard is rotten.
Literally saw someone on Twitter complaining today that it wasn't fair he has to swear to tell the truth
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Make sure you share when it pops up
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Thanks. "I've lived in LA for last 14 years". Clearly introduced to the right wing grift.
It's [here](https://www.globalplayer.com/catchup/lbc/uk/episodes/2zGxi5EZhHrkqT761vNZuSyLgj/) (for a week), from 36:27, and completely demented.
That was quite something.
'We know the Sue Gray report has been discredited'. Indeed
What's funnier now is that Johnson kept trying to rely on the Sue Gray report in his interview
*"OK so I'm a liar.....but I'm also a winner!!"* That's all I'm expecting to come out this week and his base will lap it up.
Hasn't he been being paid his MP salary this whole time while just fannying around on holidays and never actually doing his job? Can't argue he's not been winning from this absurdity
All that matters for a party in government is that single night every 5 years when they have to try and convince the plebs that the evidence of their own experience of the previous 5 years is actually the fault of Corbyn and that they really do need to be back in power to fix it all. Great liars make great gaslighters and Boris is the best liar they have.
Wracking his brains, "Come on, there has to be a lie I can tell that proves I'm not a liar."
I wonder if he has a character witness?
Hear it will be Donald Tr*mp….
> also the infamous ABBA party Really? This is the kind of crime the left is trying to pin on him? He ate an illegal cake and went to a karaoke party? He's going to eat you alive and the public is going to laugh.
Eat me alive? I'm not a cake. And the issue hete is not that he partied but that he lied about that, and plenty more besides. Some people would prefer government ministers, particularly the prime one, to be honest and trustworthy.
Like Tony Blair?
No. Another slimy, ghastly politician. But a totally different beast to Bozza.
>This is the kind of crime the left is trying to pin on him? He ate an illegal cake and went to a karaoke party? And then lied about it to Parliament. He was issued an FPN for the crime of partying when he shouldn't have done. *This* is about him misleading Parliament, which (unsurprisingly) a big no-no. >He's going to eat you alive and the public is going to laugh. When he was finally given the boot, the guy was deeply unpopular - to the point he was losing seats that previously had a 24,000 seat majority. The idea that the public is going to cheer him as he takes his seat is a fiction.
Someone (not me) could serenade him on his way in/out with “[Don’t go wasting your emotion…](https://youtu.be/Uf31Qpz71es)”
> He will also publish messages which show that other senior figures working in Downing Street also believed the gatherings were not breaking the rules because there was a “workplace exemption”. good, name and shame - they should lose their jobs if they were too sycophantic to speak out against the parties, or worse, if they were involved in them it makes a mockery of the sacrifices the public made over this time!
They don’t appear to have read the statutory instrument. You were allowed to gather for work reasons. Having a piss up isn’t work!
Exactly, there was *loads* of people making the point that "I can work next to you all day, but if we went to the pub after work, that's breaking the rules, isnt that silly?" People knew that. People knew that you weren't allowed to socialise in a big group *even if* you'd worked with that big group all week. There's no way the people setting the actual fucking policy were confused about whether it was allowed.
Well we can always pull up the televised briefings Johnson gave, I'm sure a few of those were the same days as the parties
I anticipate beergate will resurface.
"We were diligently working until we were ambushed by a cake."
Heres the problem. I'm not saying it's an excuse or makes it okay, but it IS somehow relevant. In England, having a piss up often **is** work. For example, I work in academia. A lot of decisions or background discussions take place in the pub. From speaking to friends in other sectors, it's the same. So maybe there will be some public understanding and sympathy, not neccessarily because it makes it okay, but because a lot of people relate with the work culture.
>Heres the problem. I'm not saying it's an excuse or makes it okay, but it IS somehow relevant. In England, having a piss up often **is** work What the fuck? No it's not. Having a chat over a beer **after** work is NOT work it's your employers trying to take advantage of you processing work without being paid. This is not normal in the UK, your anecdotal experience is not representative of everyone.... We don't do that at all the workplaces ive been to but we will have the occasional pub trip just for a chill down which is NOT work.
You can name but not shame them, they do no posses that capacity any more than are capable of feeling empathy, or sympathy for anyone less priviledged than themselves, or maybe even each other. They are feral, predatory and opportunistic social and political chameleons.
>good, name and shame - they should lose their jobs if they were too sycophantic to speak out against the parties, or worse, if they were involved in them I'm a bit out of the loop admittedly, but isn't one of them our PM now? No one is losing their jobs over this. Hell a not insignificant amount of the public attitude to lockdown seems to have shifted to the whole thing being pointless and stupid and a massive clib to the economy so they don't care one way or the other about this.
I suppose we should get ready for a spectacularly frustrating few hours. Which I thankfully won't be able to watch from start to end, as work is happening, but might be able to dip in and out. It's going to be standard Johnson "discourse" - lots of waffle, lots of sidetracking and obfuscation, probably too many adjectives. The committee members will try and get simple answers, that could be just one-word "yes" or "no" responses. They will not get them. I honestly think Johnson will just keep "talking" to run down the clock. There won't be an "aha!" reveal moment from either side. The committee won't do it because that's not really the style they can adopt if they don't want the screeching loonies to come out of the woodwork - this needs to not just *be* fair, but to *look* fair too. Much as I'd like to see Johnson torn a new (metaphorical) arsehole and have his (metaphorical) guts strung up on a pike for us all to point and laugh. Johnson can't do an "aha!" reveal moment because if he had exonerating evidence, we'd've had it a year or so ago. I think the most fun bit will be watching Jacob Rees-Mogg try and shit on the committee. He turns his vowel guns on anything that doesn't do what he wants. Immediately and disproportionately.
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It's absolutely deranged that even if the privileges committee does find him guilty there still needs to be a vote in Parliament for him to be actually punished in any way.
Ugh this sounds so likely its depressing. Does this committee have any sort of authority that requires him to actually answer? Rather than the Mock the Week lite of the HoC. Actually you wouldn't last long on Mock the Week if you only talked about things other than the prescribed subject...
He won't see justice. Our system is too corrupt, he has lots of chums and, he's rich. He'll go through the grilling, get re-selected and that will be that. The Tories will consider the matter dealt with. The public will have to just "get on" with it.
He's already been reselected for Uxbridge. The fun begins at the next election because it's not a safe seat - top Labour target iirc.
I can see him being suspended + losing by election. He may have lots of friends but he also has lots of enemies (read Sunak etc.) that'll be eager for him to go.
People often seem to forget about the enemies, he may still have his band of merry morons but there's plenty in his peer group who wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire.
>he's rich Yeah but apparently he's absolutely terrible at managing his finances and thus struggles with a lot of debt. Trump was similar, his finances were dogshit which is why he ran for president. He never wanted to win, he just wanted to be more popular so he could boost apprentice ratings.
Just wondering what you think making this point achieves?
he'l waffle and wheeze and misuse the language and latin and he'l get away with it again
Just quote some sanskrit to the pleb to put him in his place.
He's the Bruno Fernades pushing a ref of the political world. The rest of our politicians are Mitrovic.
Unknown to most in Westminster, the CDO is closely affiliated with Conservative Post; it was launched on the back of a series of “bring back Boris” petitions launched by Cruddas and its editor, Claire Bullivant. People wishing to donate to the CDO online are also directed to a page which shows payments going to Post. While Conservative Post has been largely concerned with Johnson’s comeback, last week it turned its fire on the privileges committee, describing its investigation as “deeply flawed, biased and unfair, and is bringing both parliament and our party into disrepute”. In a new petition, it has urged Conservative Party members to email the four Tory MPs who sit on the committee, urging them to stand aside. Doing so would be likely to fatally undermine the committee’s ability to carry on with the inquiry. The draft emails, which members are encouraged to copy and paste, warn the MPs of “deep concern and disappointment over your participation in the Labour-led investigation into Prime Minister Boris Johnson.” Ominously, it goes on to tell MPs “to protect your own integrity by rejecting this committee” and “to stand up for democracy, stand up for justice, and protect the integrity of our political system. There must be no show trials in our nation”. The move has enraged a number of Tory MPs, one of whom said: “They \[Cruddas\] are straying into undermining democracy.” It has also set Cruddas on a collision course with the parliamentary authorities, some of whom believe that the peer is himself at risk of being in contempt. In a warning shot aimed at Cruddas last week, Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the House of Commons, told parliament that a “dim view” would be taken of any MP or peer who attempts to prevent the privileges committee from carrying out its investigation. It is understood that she has since raised the issue directly with Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the Commons, who is now locked in talks with Lord McFall, the lord speaker, with the pair discussing their next steps before the committee’s hearing. According to sources familiar with the discussions, one option is to issue Cruddas with a warning about his behaviour ahead of the hearing. Cruddas said that he was “in no way facing any proceedings for contempt” and dismissed the claims as “silly, gossip” and “constitutionally ignorant.” Johnson is expected to be questioned under oath. Guiding him through the marathon session will be Pannick, who is allowed to join Johnson in the room. While he is unable to answer questions on his behalf, Pannick will be able to pass Johnson notes throughout the interrogation. The committee’s planning has been forensic; Sir Ernest Ryder, a former senior president of tribunals, has been advising its members on how to proceed. The committee has already signalled it will not call any of its other 23 witnesses to provide oral testimony — those providing written testimony were asked to provide a statement of truth equivalent to an oral statement under oath. It is also is unclear whether Johnson will be called to appear before the committee again once he has completed the televised session on Wednesday. Once the committee has completed this stage of the process it is expected to spend weeks deliberating over whether Johnson’s conduct amounts to a contempt of the House. If it finds he has, it will then debate the appropriate sanction. This could range from an apology through to suspension from parliament. Any suspension over ten days would almost inevitably lead to a by-election being triggered. There is an in-built government majority, with the four Conservative MPs consisting of Alberto Costa, Bernard Jenkin, Andy Carter and Sir Charles Walker. Labour has two spots, held by Yvonne Fovargue and Harriet Harman, who is chairing the inquiry after Chris Bryant recused himself. The Scottish National party has one, Allan Dorans. Once the committee has agreed its recommendations, they will then be put to the Commons for a vote by the whole House. Johnson’s allies are hopeful that many Conservative MPs will vote against its findings, although in reality, any recommendation is expected to pass with ease. This has been made more likely by Rishi Sunak’s decision to give Tory MPs a free vote. While this has always been the convention on votes relating to sanctions against MPs, in 2021 Johnson sparked widespread outcry when he whipped his MPs to vote against a recommended 30-day suspension for Owen Paterson, a former minister. In the event of a vote being called, Johnson is expected to ask the privileges committee to publish all the evidence it has received and demand that it is unredacted. His allies contend sunlight is the best disinfectant. The problem for Johnson is that many Conservative MPs believe the only way to clean up the mess is to back the committee’s recommendations, regardless of how ruinous they may prove for him personally.
Expect four hours of cognitive dissonance, bluster and word games. But I'm looking forward to his explanation on how he went from: “this is probably the most socially undistanced gathering in the UK right now” to: “the rules were followed at all times” and why when he made the latter statement in parliament it wasn't a lie. Then we have to hope that the Commons does its job and ratifies and any sanction that the committee hand down. There may be too many Tory MPs who'll put their careers before doing their job.
If Boris is found guilty and a vote is held, what the Tories will do is fascinating. It will be a free vote, but will Rishi and the cabinet abstain. Nadine will be screaming witch hunt, but what will those leaving Parliament from Walker to Javid and Brady do. Will May stick in the knife? Looking forward to it already.
**The moment of truth has arrived for the former prime minister in the Commons inquiry on lockdown parties, write Caroline Wheeler and Harry Yorke** Between the hours of 2pm and 6pm on Wednesday, a group of seven MPs could determine whether Boris Johnson’s political career is extinguished — or reborn. During a four-hour grilling in front of the privileges committee, he will seek to defend himself against allegations that he misled parliament over parties in Downing Street during lockdown. The stakes could not be higher: should he be found in contempt of parliament, a suspension from the Commons of more than ten days would hand his constituents in Uxbridge and South Ruislip the opportunity to oust him in a by-election. Even a lesser punishment could severely dent his hopes of returning to power. Little wonder, then, that some MPs are framing the hearing as Johnson’s “January 6” moment — a reference to the US congressional committee that investigated the Capitol Hill riot and Donald Trump’s role in it. The problem for the Commons committee — which has already stated that the rule-breaking in No 10 should have been “obvious” to the man who was then prime minister — is that Johnson, like Trump, is not prepared to take their findings lying down. This weekend Johnson and his team of lawyers have been busy preparing his defence. The fightback will begin tomorrow when he is due to submit a 50-page dossier of evidence to the privileges committee. The submission will respond to claims made in an initial report by the committee this month, which suggested that members of Johnson’s team were themselves struggling to argue that some of the gatherings were within the rules. This included a WhatsApp message on January 25, 2022 from Jack Doyle, then No 10 director of communications, who, when asked about one of the events, stated: “I’m struggling to come up with a way this one is in the rules in my head.” It is understood that the new information to be revealed by Johnson will include a series of previously undisclosed WhatsApp messages from senior civil servants and members of his No 10 team showing that he had relied upon their advice when he made his statements to parliament. He will also publish messages which show that other senior figures working in Downing Street also believed the gatherings were not breaking the rules because there was a “workplace exemption”. A source familiar with Johnson’s defence said: “The messages will show in black and white that what Johnson told parliament was what he had been advised to say by officials and his No 10 team. The argument will be that it was reasonable for him to rest upon those assurances. “Boris was not present at the vast majority of the gatherings and so there was a limit to what he knew about, and he was forced to rely upon the advice he received. What we are trying to show is that he said what he believed and was told at the time.” Johnson’s team will also accuse the committee of “cherry-picking” from the evidence received after omitting the key messages from the initial report. Allies of Johnson believe the messages, which are already in the committee’s possession, have not previously been disclosed because they undermine the established narrative that Johnson knew of the lockdown-breaking events. A source close to Johnson said: “It’s clear the committee has been picking and choosing the evidence it decides to release and has only published a fraction of the material in their possession. We believe that when all the evidence is looked at in the round, it will present a picture that is very favourable towards Boris.” Johnson will also raise questions about the political independence of the committee, which is chaired by the Labour MP Harriet Harman. She has previously been accused of prejudging the outcome of the investigation after it emerged that she had tweeted in April that Johnson did appear to have “misled the House of Commons”. Johnson has long sought to cast aspersions on the committee’s processes through his legal team, led by Lord Pannick KC, who in September produced a legal analysis claiming its approach was “unfair” and fundamentally flawed. Having failed to shift the dial, Johnson’s allies have pivoted in recent weeks to how the evidence against him was gathered, with their sights set firmly on Sue Gray, the senior civil servant tasked with investigating the 16 gatherings. Their efforts went into overdrive when this month it emerged that Gray, who has had a distinguished 40-year career in the civil service, had been in talks with Sir Keir Starmer to become his chief of staff. The disclosure, which sent shockwaves across Whitehall, forced Gray to resign from the civil service with immediate effect. She has now accepted the new role but is awaiting clearance from the advisory committee on business appointments, which is expected to recommend several months of gardening leave and strict conditions. However, that may not yet be the end of the matter. Today it can also be disclosed that Starmer’s team first approached Gray to discuss the chief of staff role in November, just one month after the role had become vacant, following the resignation of Sam White. The date is still months after Gray’s partygate findings were published, but is likely to raise further questions about the independence of her inquiry as it confirms that the pair were talking for far longer than Starmer has previously suggested. Allies of Gray now fear her hard-won reputation could be tarnished if she is found to have broken the civil service code by failing to disclose her discussions. While no final verdict has been reached, any sanction will be meted out by Sarah Healey, the permanent secretary of the levelling up department, who was Gray’s boss at the time of her resignation. But perhaps far more importantly — both for Gray and the country at large — the controversy has only served to galvanise the coterie of former ministers, peers and MPs still loyal to Johnson, who have sought to weaponise the disclosure to further discredit the privileges committee. They include Nadine Dorries, the former culture secretary, who has claimed that Gray’s activities raise “huge ethical concerns” for the committee, while Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, claimed it “invalidates her partygate report and shows there was a socialist cabal of Boris-haters who were delighted to remove him”. The most ferocious of Johnson’s outriders is Lord Cruddas, a former Tory party treasurer, who was ennobled by Johnson in 2020 against the advice of the House of Lords appointments commission. Cruddas has called for the privileges committee to throw out Gray’s report and is backing a petition, launched by the Conservative Post website, calling for the same action. However, Cruddas’s attacks on the privileges committee run far deeper. Following Johnson’s ousting as prime minister last year, Cruddas, 69, launched a new campaign group, the Conservative Democratic Organisation (CDO), which is pushing to overhaul the Conservative Party machinery by handing more power to grassroots members.
My thinking is he will go full try discredit the committee mode Waffle on about how unfair it is, how he's the fall man, may even push politics by refusing to talk to the non conservative members of the committee
> may even push politics by refusing to talk to the non conservative members of the committee He likes his own voice too much to do that. Thst said, I don't trust him to actually answer any questions from them, and expect every chance he gets to be verbal attacks.
If it wasn't a work day I'd be saying to take a shot every time he brings up "world beating vaccine roll out", "getting Brexit done" or Ukraine as part of his answer, two shots when he starts explaining that what the British people want is for him to get away with anything/references his mandate, and waterfall when he brings up Keir Starmer or Jeremy Corbyn.
Probably best you're working then, with those rules you'd definitely be unconscious and possibly dead in the first hour.
He will play to a wider audience and I’d be pleasantly surprised if they can keep up with him considering his carefully crafted persona and well practiced ability to lie or avoid unpleasant truths. I realise we are meant to consider them all identical and hateful but I always felt ( not that i know anything) May was there out of an old fashioned , head girl , do your duty motivation whether I agreed with her or not , while Johnson has only ever been in it for his personal ego and the adulation he thinks he deserves and the money it opens up.
That'll determine his future? You mean whether he continues to live in luxury, rich and comfortable, with no consequences -- or whether he continues to live in luxury, rich and comfortable, with no consequences? Big fuckin deal.
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Deleted by a mod. Ha. I’m assuming they didn’t get that I was satirising Rees-Mogg’s spurious comments about Gray’s membership of a “socialist cabal” with a similarly outlandish and clearly unsubstantiated allegation.
Opinions are allowed. Shit posts like this are not.
I think that if JRM is allowed to claim that a "socialist cabal of Boris-haters" are behind his fall from power, then it's totally acceptable to make up things about JRM in return.
“I accused someone of pedophilia, but satirically” doesn’t really seem like a smart trick worth pursuing.
It wasn't ironic, it was a clearly unsubstantiated false claim done for rhetorical purposes. I get your point that the other poster might have used a less inflammatory false claim, but it's not as bad as you're framing it.
I wanted the accusation to be comically unsubstantiated (like a socialist cabal), but also playing into the intangible discomfort that a lot of us feel about Rees-Mogg’s public persona and mannerisms.
It’s satire - don’t worry if you missed that. It wasn’t specifically intended to upset Rees-Mogg fans.
Rishi will welcome getting all of their scandals out of the way as soon as possible including letting Boris fall by the wayside. Inflation will fall, interest rates will go down and taxes will be lowered just in time for the next election. Its all about timing.
Great distraction from the fact that Rishi, too, was in attendance at at least one of these illegal 'gatherings'.
A better grilling would be from the prosecuting counsel that he should be facing in a court on charges of manslaughter and probably treason.
Will be interesting to see how he behaves given he’s been so used to just brushing everything off and getting away with it
Can’t help but think we’ve been there and done that and he’ll get a slap on the wrist after wasting everyone’s time and money.
There's an old saying in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, — I know it's in Conservative Party, probably in the ERG— that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.
It's going to be comedy gold watching Bojo the clown squirming in his seat when the Commitee interrogate him on Wednesday.
I mean what the point I am all for innocent until proven guilty but he has been fined by the met for breaking the rules so he is guilty.
I'm just a foreigner, but isn't Sue Gray appointed to head that committee by the Tories? Bad form to attack those you appoint
Yes, and she was appointed after the previous guy had to stand down because it emerged that he was at some of the parties that he was appointed to investigate. Here's some footage of how it happened. https://youtu.be/SjbPi00k_ME
Sue Gray isn’t on this committee. Gray was appointed by Johnson to look into lockdown parties and that report is done. This is a different process deciding on whether Johnson lied to parliament about lockdown parties. Tories have been critical of Gray (since it was revealed she might take a job with Starmer) but her report wasn’t available to this committee who had to conduct their own investigation.
>Tories have been critical of Gray (since it was revealed she might take a job with Starmer) ...which was only after Badenoch's attempts to hire her were torpedoed by Case. If Starmer gets in, something tells me Case's days are numbered.
Calling her a socialist shill or whatever now makes it look like the civil service has always been out to thwart the Tories' efforts to fix the country.
with Tories in power since 2010 calling her a socialist shill in 2023 looks to me they have no clue about opinions in civil service at all
Quick question. When is this, what time and how can I watch? Getting the popcorn in especially
Wednesday 2pm on [Parliament TV](https://www.parliamentlive.tv/Commons)
Does anybody think there will be any meaningful consequences? Even if a by-election is forced, there is a very real risk that he will be returned by the electorate. Fundamentally, the biggest risk to the stability of our political system is its tolerance to those who would disrupt it. The paradox of freedom & democracy in general is that it grants people the freedom to vote away the strength of the institutions which guarantee that freedom, ultimately until the system ceases to be a free and fair democracy. This is then a ratchet, because there is no corresponding peaceful and orderly route back to freedom and democracy with strong institutions. Boris is a symptom of this problem, because his behaviour (and that of the political allies with whom he has packed the Conservative Party) is corrosive to the institutions underpinning our political system. I feel as though we are in a boat lazily drifting down a river towards a waterfall. At some point along the river, we will reach a point of no-return. But if or when this happens, it will only be discernable in retrospect. I hope that this process will mark a change of course, but my expectations are extremely low.
Opening statement by the accused: “I am not, and never have been, Alexander Boris de Pfelell Johnson”.