WATCHING Panorama’s Partygate episode on Tuesday tonight suggested to me that Boris Johnson is in complete denial of the truth. He made rules to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic, and then ignored them for himself. Not because of his position as Prime Minister, but for how he places himself as a person in society; perhaps defined by his own social upbringing. It was suggested that whatever he says or does is his business only, to do or ignore, deny, as he pleases.
His pinnacle in life, apparently, is his current position as Prime Minister of all England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Not that those countries have much importance to him.
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However, he also does not appear to appreciate exactly what that job actually entails. The mere fact that his actions affect all of society – for some for the better financially, but for the rest, diametrically opposite where finance is concerned, with them becoming poorer at every level conceivable – is of no concern to Boris Johnson.
Consequences are not important to him. Power is, and that is his driving stick. The ability to change the world he lives in and the consequences for the rest of us is not apparent to him. Not his concern. Let someone else deal with it.
Sadly, his Cabinet is full of homegrown parasites only concerned with their own power and profit from success in being the chosen ones. So long as they doff their caps to their employer, their positions are maintained safe.
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Fortunately, there are ways out of the turmoil he has created. Scotland is on its way to becoming independent of the Westminster government, Wales is beginning to think along similar lines and Northern Ireland has elected the party capable of creating a united island of Ireland.
Boris Johnson’s world is slowly collapsing. Perhaps, after Tuesday night’s Partygate television programme, England might wake up to how the rest of the disunited kingdoms feel.
Alan Magnus-Bennett
Fife
HAVING watched Panorama on Tuesday evening, perhaps the most disturbing finding is how immune Johnson’s party faithful are to his bumbling along, happy chappie, short commitment to whatever he most recently said. Somehow they see this as a charm of great diplomatic benefit at this uncertain time of Brexit chaos, pandemic fallout, cost-of-living crisis and Russia/Ukraine war. It is surely anything but to anyone at all concerned with serious issues of national and international concern.
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Goddammit, the man has zilch memory span, lost amid his barking speech habit, much like the royal heir and others somehow speech-trained to stress individual words rather than the point inferred. Monty Don, although clearly on top of all things gardening, unfortunately has the same habit, which loses the point of whatever he is saying thereby threatening switch-off.
If the 80-seat majority Tory government can find no-one in their midst more appropriate than Johnson to lead the country, then it really is time they gave him a potting shed and called a General Election.
Tom Gray
Braco
IT appears that one of the principle excuses for the Partygate fiasco is that that the civil servants (in this case a contradiction in terms) were working hard during the Covid pandemic. Clearly their and the Prime Minister’s definition of “work events” included heavy drinking, dancing, folk being sick and having to sleep it off in the office overnight.
Were the nurses and doctors in our hospitals not working hard as well? I strongly suspect they were not partying at the end of their shifts looking after the sick and in many cases the dying.
Brian Lawson
Paisley
I MUST say that I, along with many others, was taken aback when the Metropolitan Police concluded its investigation into Partygate and the Prime Minister had only been given one fixed penalty fine despite the fact there was clear evidence he had attended several parties.
My reservations about the impartiality of the Metropolitan Police was born of the fact that initially the Met was extremely reluctant to investigate the then allegations of partying at No 10 during the Covid lockdown. The fact was that the Met had to be pressured into investigating Covid lockdown breaches at No 10.
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It’s my belief that the protracted investigation (four months) by the Met could be perceived as an attempt to buy time for the embattled PM in the hope the political narrative would move on to the Ukraine and the cost-of-living crisis. However this has been scuppered by the fact that the plot has thickened with the revelations that junior staff at No 10 are outraged that they have been fined for attending parties with the PM while he has got off “scot-free”.
Now the Met is in a crisis of its own making as it comes under investigation about its lack of rigour and due diligence into its investigation into the No 10 parties.
Sandy Gordon
Edinburgh
IT has been suggested that infection from monkey pox can come from certain types of sexual activity. It’s likely that the government will advise us to avoid casual sex, among other measures. But no doubt after a few weeks there will be news stories of a government minister and a government health advisor having casual flings.
They could learn from Partygate and get their urges out of the way now.
Geoff Moore
Alness, Highland
ON Wednesday Boris Johnson had the opportunity to take his place as a statesman on the global stage. Instead the world watched our Prime Minister wallowing in a midden of his own creation in front of benches deserted by his MPs.
John Jamieson
South Queensferry
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