lovely line from ms Hyde
A vast tide of something is flowing out of Downing Street, but it doesn’t smell like history.
^^ Glazed, damn you, glazed!😁
AMBUSHED WITH A CAKE
Damn those dwarves and their bakery munitions.
AMBUSHED WITH A CAKE
Damn those dwarves and their bakery munitions.
Reminds me of the scene with Sean bean and robert denero....
Any gues what Starmer's first question will be at pmq's?
Is there anything else you'd like to tell us Prime minister?
Like Ernie the milkman. Taken down by cake!
I'm glad everyone it's getting a rise out of this.
Taken down by cake!
Pork pie… which is topical as well…
He will claim it was the fairy (cakes) wot did it
Eton Mess cake anyone?
It would mean divorce
and a custardy battle
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Flan B
^^ Jezus, the absolute moral vacuum is astounding.
https://unbound.com/books/the-decade-in-tory/
Someone posted a tweet from the author of the above book a few pages back. Haven't laughed so hard in a long time.
So I've bought an advance copy of his book. Thought I'd share the link if anyone's interested 😊
EDIT - Top of page 214, posted by jam-bo
The fines for breaking lockdown are up to £10 000 - not a speeding ticket in my book.
Where the Mail leads… Kirsty Walk trying to walk the same line with Emily Thornberry & Layla Moran on Newsnight but they keep stopping her and coming back to “one rule for them, another for everyone else”. Surely this is what Johnson is relying on… kick this down the road and hope that “events” take over in the press and his lie upon lie upon lie about these lockdown get togethers start to look less important. Who needs a truthful leader, we just need to move on.
The haunted pencil on saying nothing… we need to wait for… blah blah… just play for time. In the meantime… let’s talk about “more important things”. “We’re talking about a slice of cake”… no we’re talking about a prime minister’s lies, including to parliament, and attempts to cover up his social gatherings that took place when he was telling us we couldn’t do the same.
Haunted pencil aka Steampunk 3CPO needs some lessons on body language How many times did he raise his palm towards Kirsty Wark?
…….and he now believes any new PM constitutionally should call a GE to justify themselves. A convenient concept to scare vulnerable MPs…
Haunted pencil aka Steampunk 3CPO needs some lessons on body language How many times did he raise his palm towards Kirsty Wark
That’s what happens naturally when you’re surrounded by staff but don’t actually have any friends.
What Boris Johnson does is much the same. And Gove. And all the rest of them. I doubt any of them have got anyone that would qualify as what most of us identify with as genuine ‘friends’
You could almost feel sorry for them
If they weren’t such utter ****s
Regarding all this talk about cakes,
nothing has been proved.
That pun didn't rise to the occasion.
We are all now living in an episode of the Thick of It. Truly now beyond parody…
https://twitter.com/conorgogarty/status/1486056947396788235?s=21
You could almost feel sorry for them
Careful Binners you could be goimg soft on them , I would expect better from you
Personally, I'm hoping that Boris rides out this storm and stays PM until the next election.
To be clear (as today's politicians would say), this is not because I have anything other than complete contempt for hin and his party.
My worry is that, if he goes now, that gives two years for his successor (Rishi, Hunt or - God preserve us - Truss) to steady the ship.
Whereas if BJ stays there he'll inevitably lunge from crisis to self-made crisis until even the Great British Electorate have had enough.
Depressing though it is,I can't see the Tories losing other than by a protest vote.
let’s talk about “more important things”. “We’re talking about a slice of cake”… no we’re talking about a prime minister’s lies, including to parliament, and attempts to cover up his social gatherings that took place when he was telling us we couldn’t do the same.
Indeed - the issue is only really one of 'getting caught' now - now that the height of the pandemic, in terms of mortality, is behind us.If you're desperate to try and trivialise it you can try and make sound like muck-raking to be picking through it all now. But imagine if the story of any of these parties and broken in the days after they took place - the government's grip of a public health emergency has always been pretty tenuous - they've been pulled along, for the most part, by the public rather than lead. But if these stories had broken at the time then the government - and I don't mean No 10, or the cabinet, or parliament - but government in terms of all public the public agencies seeking to insure the nation's safety - would have lost all authority and all ability to manage and communicate during a global crisis. And people would have died - lots more of them.
There were 'Important things' then too and a cowardly and careless leader ****ing them up - lets not kid ourselves distractions are a problem now for Boris 'doesnt turn up for briefings' Johnson or any of his enablers.
140,000 excess deaths - laid end to end the coffins would stretch from London to Birmingham. There were definitely 'important things'.
That’s what happens naturally when you’re surrounded by staff but don’t actually have any friends.
What Boris Johnson does is much the same. And Gove. And all the rest of them. I doubt any of them have got anyone that would qualify as what most of us identify with as genuine ‘friends’
You could almost feel sorry for them
If they weren’t such utter ****s
I think that is true for most politicians. To get on in that kind of environment you don't bother with making "friends" of people who cannot further your career, and you do make "friends" of those who can. They may have a few genuine friends who are not other politicians, possibly.
My concern remains that when we've rightly been looking at lies around parties, we've not been looking at the Police and Crime, the Immigration bill, the Electoral changes bill....
Well, with >>> all this <<< mess going on around the government, it has been easier for the HoL to slow the progress of those bills, and point out the problems with them.... and it will be harder to push them through the HoC.
Careful Binners you could be goimg soft
Surely that would make Binners a biscuit 🤔🤔
My concern remains that when we’ve rightly been looking at lies around parties, we’ve not been looking at the Police and Crime, the Immigration bill, the Electoral changes bill….
This ^^
Nationality Bill
Indeed – the issue is only really one of ‘getting caught’ now – now that the height of the pandemic, in terms of mortality, is behind us.If you’re desperate to try and trivialise it you can try and make sound like muck-raking to be picking through it all now.
"It was only ten minutes" avoids the thorny problem of why these restrictions existed: to stop people dying.
Jim’ll nails it
I don't know why anyone is surprised, after all it's called the Conservative Party. It would be a different story if the Labour Buzzkill were in power.
So, is today the day, Sue Gray day?
It has to be bad doesn't it? First the Tories wanted it delayed until the Police had looked into it, but Gray said No, then they wanted it released, pretty much as the PM stood to answer it, when he'd no doubt claim complete innocence and hope no one bothered to check? But the Speaker of the House said no. No it looks like after first saying it would be redacted, then that it wouldn't be, now it looks like Johnson is going to stop most of it becoming public. Of course it will be leaked within moments, but No10 / Johnson seem to be in a complete panic now.
However it is released, what realdactions are in place and how long everyone has to digest it before he has to answer questions on it there will be chaos.
My guess is it's released after PMQ's and with lots of redactions. They will then announce something different (possibly about Russia) shortly after to try and dictate the morning headlines. I have a real fear that what should be Johnson being forced out will end up with us at war with Putin!
It has to be bad doesn’t it?
I dont know. I mean how often has an inquiry gone against the person who ordered it? The only time you allow a properly independent inquiry is when you know it wont hurt you so normally historical.
I know he isnt exactly details focussed but surely he would have got that detail right?
Once again I hope that the opposition actually ramp up in PMQ's, not only to challenge this situation, but to pull the debate around to the 'real' issues that are heading our way...
If it's released after PMQs, he can deflect and defer questions.
If its released before, well, he's not had time to study and review the findings.
He'll wriggle and squeal like the little pig he is either way.
I think the friends thing would vary politician to politician. Years ago when I lived in London I went running with people who were MP's, mostly conservative, and they were pretty normal people generally. I've also met junior ministers, and usually ditto but some were not. I can imagine Gove having friends, Boris... hmmm.... people he's known a long time , but acquaintances rather than friends. I have a friend of a friend who was at school with Boris, but I haven't spoken to him for the best part of 20 years, and he was pretty similar to Boris - nice to go drinking with, but interested in selling you shares in his tech startup at the time...
It has to be bad doesn’t it?
I dont know. I mean how often has an inquiry gone against the person who ordered it? The only time you allow a properly independent inquiry is when you know it wont hurt you so normally historical.
I know he isnt exactly details focussed but surely he would have got that detail right?
I don't know either. This really is a Tory Civil war though. Johnson has been forced into a lot of things he didn't want to do by his backbenchers, not the Opposition, the Press or even us Commoners.
As with most things, he's managed to act badly too late and Cummings is waaaay better as these sorts of dirty tricks, trapping him into lie after lie, I can't remember the timeline but the story is bigger now and when Johnson first ordered the enquiry, Simon Case, Sue's Boss was supposed to do it, but it turned out he'd held a party too, so Johnson ended up with Sue Gray who is an odd one.
Politically they're supposed to be impartial, but I don't think anyone really is. Simon Case, seemed to have only ever worked for Tories. Public School and then Cambridge, doesn't sound like he has many centre-left leanings. Sue Gray on the other hand no one really knows much about her, other than she's been a Civil Servant since the 70s, well, at least when she wasn't running a Pub in a dodgy part of Belfast during The Troubles, on one hand she investigated Damian Green which resulted in his sacking and Gordon Brown thought highly of her when she worked for him, but on the other, she's known for being good in a crisis and an expert on not leaving a paper trail (aka destroying evidence).
Wonder how many lines Johnson will be snorting to get through PMQs today? He was off his face last week, this week I wouldn't be surprised if he has a sudden nosebleed or heart attack at the dispatch box. 😄
Meanwhile all the tories think he's Jeremy Corbyn in disguise..
https://twitter.com/DavidGHFrost/status/1486097452780376064?s=20
but on the other, she’s known for being good in a crisis and an expert on not leaving a paper trail (aka destroying evidence).
Lady Gray 🙂
