That's also our next King's biggest scandal.
That's also our next King's biggest scandal.
A
AGinAg (37)
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big ron
King of moopy
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It surprises me, I really should fucking hate them, I just don't. I don't love them either.
Cerro de Casa
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Madison
Everything goes up by six
Another party (as hinted to by Cummings last week):
www.itv.com
news.sky.com
Email proves Downing Street staff held drinks party at height of lockdown | ITV News
An email shared exclusively with ITV News proves a party took place on May 20, 2020, in which staff were invited to 'make the most of the lovely weather'. | ITV National News
www.itv.com
Boris Johnson and Carrie Johnson attended 'bring your own booze' event in No 10 garden during first coronavirus lockdown
The families of those who have died during the coronavirus pandemic react with fury at new revelations in the Number 10 "partygate" row, with one woman describing how a Downing Street drinks gathering was held on the same day her father's death certificate was signed.
A
AGinAg (37)
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Bring your own drinks. Fucking cheapskates.
C
COB
Guest
I wonder if these new stories will have the same impact this time around, given that there was a Christmas break to let the public anger cool down. I hope I'm wrong obviously!
Jark
PLUMP and RIPE
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a fairly disturbing read from the New York Times today
www.nytimes.com
Opinion | Boris Johnson Is Revealing Who He Really Is
A raft of repressive legislation shows the prime minister’s true colors.
LONDON — Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, bruised by scandal and faced with an alarming rise in coronavirus cases, is refusing to change course. “We have a chance,” he bullishly proclaimed on Jan. 4, “to ride out this Omicron wave without shutting down our country once again.”
Public health experts may disagree. Yet Mr. Johnson is at least being consistent — not only with his conduct throughout the pandemic, where lockdowns were a last resort and restrictions were to be shelved as soon as possible, but also with the political platform that elevated him to the highest office. After all, this is the man who rose to power — bringing about Brexit in the process — on the promise to restore “freedom” and “take back control.”
Undeterred by the pandemic, Mr. Johnson has been quietly pursuing that agenda. But instead of reforming the country’s creaking democracy and shoring up Britons’ rights, he and his lieutenants are doing the opposite: seizing control for themselves and stripping away the freedoms of others. A raft of bills likely to pass this year will set Britain, self-professed beacon of democracy, on the road to autocracy. Once in place, the legislation will be very hard to shift. For Mr. Johnson, it amounts to a concerted power grab.
It’s also an answer. Mr. Johnson is a political chameleon, and his true ideological bent — liberal? one-nation Tory? English nationalist? — has long been a subject of speculation. Now he has, beyond any doubt, revealed who he really is: a brattish authoritarian who puts his personal whims above anything else. And whatever his future, Britain will be remade in his image.
Amid the chaos wrought by the pandemic, Brexit tumult and increasing questions about the stability of Mr. Johnson’s individual position, the full scale of the impending assault on civil liberties has — understandably — not yet come into focus for much of the British public. The list of legislation is long and deliberately overwhelming. But pieced together, the picture is bleakly repressive.
First, there’s the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, a draconian and broad piece of legislation that effectively bans protest in England and Wales. The police would be equipped to shut down demonstrations that create “serious disruption.” Those who break this condition, which could be done just by making noise, would face prison sentences or hefty fines. Combined with other measures, such as outlawing traditional direct-action tactics like “locking on,” the bill could eventually make it almost impossible to attend a demonstration without committing an offense.
Yet it goes beyond protest, putting minority groups in the cross hairs. New trespass provisions, which make “residing on land without consent in or with a vehicle” a criminal offense, would essentially erase nomadic Gypsy, Roma and Traveler communities from public life. And the expansion of police powers would not only allow officers widespread access to private education and health care records, but also pave the way for suspicionless stop and search. Ethnic minority communities, disproportionately singled out for police attention, are likely to bear the brunt of such overreach.
Similarly punitive is the Nationality and Borders Bill. Stiffening Britain’s already hawkish immigration policy, it seeks to criminalize asylum seekers who take unsanctioned routes: Refugees who arrive by boat, for example, could face up to four years in prison, regardless of the validity of their claim for safe haven. And if claimants escape traditional jail, they would be kept in concentration camp-style housing and offshore processing centers, sites long denounced by human rights activists.
Not even British citizens are safe from the dragnet. A provision slipped into the bill in November by its architect, the home secretary, Priti Patel, would endow the government with the power to remove British citizenship from dual nationals without notice. Those singled out might not even have recourse to the law: Proposed reform of the Human Rights Act would make it easier for the government to deport foreign nationals and deny them claims of mistreatment.
Such draconian measures, in time, are sure to be contested. But the government has a plan for that: draining the life blood from democracy. There’s the Elections Bill, which — alongside potentially disenfranchising millions through the introduction of mandatory voter ID — aims to furnish the government with new powers over the independent elections regulator, sealing up the political process. Unless substantially amended, the bill’s consequences could be constitutionally far-reaching.
The urge to centralize power also underlies the Judicial Review and Courts Bill, which would enable Mr. Johnson and his ministers to overrule judicial review findings that challenge their agenda. The Online Safety Bill, ostensibly designed to regulate Big Tech, is yet to be introduced to Parliament. But many free-speech advocates fear that it could be used to silence critics on social media, censoring those reporting details Mr. Johnson’s government would rather keep from public view. No more pesky judges or overly inquisitive journalists interfering with government business.
It’s a truism that nations sleepwalk into tyranny, and England — the most politically powerful of the nations comprising Britain — is no exception. For decades it has possessed all the necessary ingredients: ever more spiteful nationalism, press fealty sold to the highest bidder and a fervent, misplaced belief that authoritarianism could never set up shop here, because we simply wouldn’t let it.
In this event, though, concerted opposition to Mr. Johnson’s plans has not materialized. Establishment politics have been no match for the determination of Mr. Johnson and his allies: A hefty and largely supportive Conservative majority means that even when the Labour Party has decided to oppose legislation, its votes have barely counted. And despite valiant efforts by a coalition of grass-roots groups and the initial groundswell of the “Kill the Bill” protests, a mass movement opposing these bills has failed to come together. Instead, a miasma of grim inevitability has settled in.
That’s dangerous, not least because this authoritarian assault is so comprehensive that once settled as law, it will prove very tricky to unpick. Like many leaders who seek to transcend the constraints of democracy, Mr. Johnson may not foresee a future where he isn’t the one calling the shots. But the miserable shadow his power grab will cast over Britain is likely to last far longer than the tenure of the would-be “world king” himself.
His place in the history books, however, is secured. He will forever be the libertine whose pursuit of personal freedom and “control” saw his countrymen robbed of theirs.
funky
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I just hope he reads all these articles and they eat at his soul.
He wanted to be the man in power. But that position is forever tainted. People like him will always find excuses and believe what he wants to believe, but he also driven by ego and pride. He wants to be popular and revered and respected. Right now he’s none of those things.
He may not lose his job but I hope it keeps him awake at night.
He wanted to be the man in power. But that position is forever tainted. People like him will always find excuses and believe what he wants to believe, but he also driven by ego and pride. He wants to be popular and revered and respected. Right now he’s none of those things.
He may not lose his job but I hope it keeps him awake at night.
AlgoAlex
Do you like to fine dine?
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VoR
Take it or leave it
D5K
I'll dance alone
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Must be time to change the covid rules again!
Kate
mildly communist
Obvs the DUP are cunts, but it's hard not to be a bit moved by that.
ButterTart
Like Mussolini or Kennedy
That seems like the sort of clip that will carry weight with people. There can’t be any accusations of ‘playing politics’ when it’s a grown man crying.
ButterTart
Like Mussolini or Kennedy
Oh me too, we've had a month of solid content out of him already and he's done catastrophic damage to the party in that time.
funky
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I still think he’ll hang on you know 
Teflon Boris will want to leave on his own terms. He’s going to try and convince the party that it’s better if he stays until such a date for stability and they’ll do a handover to build momentum for the election yadda yadda
I’m not saying the party doesn’t have the sharpest knives out right now but honestly, does anyone know what it actually takes to skin this toad?
Teflon Boris will want to leave on his own terms. He’s going to try and convince the party that it’s better if he stays until such a date for stability and they’ll do a handover to build momentum for the election yadda yadda
I’m not saying the party doesn’t have the sharpest knives out right now but honestly, does anyone know what it actually takes to skin this toad?
It’s not that hard but getting rid of the leader is difficult if the timing is wrong. Manage to call a vote of no confidence, and lose it, and it strengthens his hand as leader (albeit not necessarily as PM). That’s what happened with May, briefly, but she was ultimately undone by circumstances.I still think he’ll hang on you know
Teflon Boris will want to leave on his own terms. He’s going to try and convince the party that it’s better if he stays until such a date for stability and they’ll do a handover to build momentum for the election yadda yadda
I’m not saying the party doesn’t have the sharpest knives out right now but honestly, does anyone know what it actually takes to skin this toad?
Really this atrocious behaviour right now should be enough, but there doesn’t appear to be much out there about 1922 letters etc. plus you have a relatively hawkish parliamentary party, when it comes to lockdown rules, who won’t want to see him go over this. Plus so many of them still see themselves as owing their seats to them (the proportion who weren’t in Parliament before 2019 is very high).
He’ll be gone when he becomes an electoral liability and there is evidence of that. Polling in and of itself is unlikely to be enough. May will be critical (the month not Theresa
)I think I have said this before, so apologies if I sound like a broken record.