Boris and his lockdown birthday party

Why do posters keep saying "Protecting lives, protecting the economy and dealing with Ukraine and fuel problems ARE high on my list of concerns, and that's what I want the government to focus on." as though other posters aren't hugely concerned about these things too?

Obviously these things are vital to all of us but what is leadership worth if it is not based on truth, agreed rules and working for the common good? How can we have faith in our leaders if they have let us down?

Lucca

Fashionista1

Lucca I forgot swigging beer indoors with other people not from your household is OK , silly me I forgot that one

Not that.

He was in the office in his constituency. A takeaway was ordered and those who had been working together ate it, and drank a beer. Nobody else was invited in. There was no trestle table laden with food nor invitations to BYOB.

Do you remember that saying that comes to mind right now "Liar Liar, house on fire" Well Boorish Johnson has been proved a liar, who has tried to wriggle out of it by facile answers , such as I didnt realize it was a party. Well the daughter or son who was denied the opportunity to sit alone with a dying parent wont forget this. Boorish has the opportunity to improve or do something to mitigate his appalling behaviour. Those whose family members died do not have that option. The bitterness of the thought that they didnt even have a precious hour with them, while the lot in no 10 carried on regardless, will make it worse to remember too. Did anyone manage to watch Yes Prime Minister last night? This programme was made in the 1970's I believe but my goodness you could have shown it as the most up to date comedy from yesterday. Paul Eddington as the pm, the wonderful sir Nigel Hawthorne as the dreadful but clever Sir Humphrey (civil service) and Derek Foulds as the innocent and slighty dozy pp to the pm! The one politically based programme which was full of truths and at the same time very funny. Absolutely down to a T , on the goings on in the government now. What is sad is that those M P s , who we know and trust are now tarred by the same brush in the current situation and it is very sad for them. Whilst they are doing their best for their local area and are listening to peoples worries and making them think they will do what they can to deal with things, they are now lumped into the same group as liars, cheats, and self satisfied buffoons. What a sad state of affairs that is. Who on earth would want to be an MP of any party when at the moment MP is almost a swear word, rather than a word denoting honesty, trustworthy and defending others.Very sad and it will take a long time for a better view of politicians to come back!

Fashionista1

Lucca I forgot swigging beer indoors with other people not from your household is OK , silly me I forgot that one

Not that.

Germanshepherdsmum

Are you on something Mummer? I haven’t a clue what you mean.

I’m with you GSM.
Far be it from me to defend the Johnsons, but honestly Mummer your posts are so vituperative, just like your horrible post about Nicola Sturgeon.

Yet again. No one cares about the birthday party. We care that they clearly didn’t care about the deadly virus!!!

Well ever since partygate I have encouraged people NOT to pay their fines for breach of covid rules and if you have paid insist on a refund.

And do you think Chestnut that a man who doesn't know he's at a party and can be ambushed by a cake, and then thinks its OK to lie about this and everything else we've heard, is a suitable person to be leading us through the most difficult time many of us will ever experience?

I'm quite sure a government under Sunak or Truss or (God forbid) Gove would be awful, but none of those people are unfit to be Prime Minister. Johnson is. That's why he needs to leave that office.

So many bleeding hearts on here. I also missed my 70th birthday bash, daughter's 40th birthday, and grandchildren's birthdays were done on Zoom. But I haven't whinged and moaned about them. Gatherings at No 10 are really not high on my list of priorities or worries. Protecting lives, protecting the economy and dealing with Ukraine and fuel problems ARE high on my list of concerns, and that's what I want the government to focus on.

Same here, I missed treating all my girlfriends to afternoon tea for my 70th as it was August 2020! The moment has passed now as has one of my friends. I would be more respectful of Boris if he resigned as he should.
So many people have made so many sacrifices during the past two years. I am beyond words!

According to polling 68% of the British public say that they didn't break the 'rules'.

And - Stay at Home, Save the NHS

Well, Johnson didn't, did he and then he caught Covid and the NHS had to look after him.

GoldenAge

Maybe Boris was 'ambushed' with a birthday cake, maybe he knew nothing about it BUT he was responsible for setting the culture in No 10 and for his wife and the office staff to believe it was OK to gather as a group of 30 in one room with a cake says it all. On this occasion he may have been 'dragged into it' but 'it' should never have happened and only did because the others around him were used to their own privileged way of working, denied to those beyond the front door of No 10.

I agree, GoldenAge

It sounds as if the whole culture at No 10 was that of the privileged few setting the rules for the rest of us to follow whilst blatantly ignoring them themselves. Sniggering and laughing at us, unfortunately for Allegra Stratton caught on camera, but she wasn't the only one by any means.

The point of this thread is that Johnson used an innocent 7 year old child to promote his message to everyone, whilst all this was going on in the seat of power.

The rules were just for the little people.

Okay how many people can say hand on heart that they didn’t break lockdown rules
We didn't for a start and in fact I only know a couple of people who bent them slightly and took risks. It's been a miserable time.

Cannot see anyone else who would have bumbled on rather than running away!

Really? Are we meant to think its a good thing that he bumbled on? That he didn't run away?

As somebody on the radio said at lunchtime, I mean its not like he robbed a bank.

Is this how far our standards have dropped? At least he didn't run away?

Apologists for Boris say we don’t need the distraction of a leadership election when there are so many national and international issues the government need to address. After his behaviour I don’t trust a word Johnson says and have no faith in his government to deal with anything effectively. Still no action on the energy or cost of living crisis, broken manifesto promises such as no tax rises and maintaining the triple lock- all lies and ‘let them eat cake’ attitude. Surely he can’t survive on implementation of Furlough and vaccination rollout forever. If this is levelling up heaven help us

Okay how many people can say hand on heart that they didn’t break lockdown rules.

Me.

Anybody else?

The good he did? The same good as every other leader in the free world, only most of them weren't having parties that were denied to the rest of us. You don't get brownie points for just doing what's expected of you. You do get criticism for just managing to scrape through with what's expected of you while ignoring your own rules.

Mummer

SillyNanny321

Can we all give up on the mudslinging & carefully dripped information from Cummings, vile desperate for revenge man, & try living what is left of the lives some of us have! Very fed up with so many posts wanting Boris gone! I am not a Tory nor a Labour supporter. I find Starmer as repulsive & ridiculous as Boris & 99% of all politicians past & present! Boris was slung in at the deep end when the pandemic hit & tried his best! Cannot see anyone else who would have bumbled on rather than running away! This is all in the past now & unless we find a DeLorean will not be altered! So can we just be thankful that we are here & stop this as it only causes friction on a site that I come to listen to other than he did/she said etc! Waiting for the mudslinging my way now but I will not click on any more threads like this as I have too much else to worry about ok?

Why the attack on Starker then? Is that for balance? You are your own namesake

Mummer, that was nasty, I think that SillyNanny321 proved her point and I totally agree with what she said.
BTW who is Starker

I am wondering if the pm is all that is said about him how can he be trusted to handle the potential
Ukraine situation. A wise cool head is needed surely

Okay how many people can say hand on heart that they didn’t break lockdown rules. What about all the thousands on protest marches, are they all going to traced and arrested, I think not. For goodness sake let’s concentrate on all the good he did. How many of you would be dead or in intensive care if he hadn’t launched a mass vaccination program. How many businesses would have gone under with huge job losses without the furlough scheme and the help businesses received.

Lucca I forgot swigging beer indoors with other people not from your household is OK , silly me I forgot that one

SillyNanny321

Can we all give up on the mudslinging & carefully dripped information from Cummings, vile desperate for revenge man, & try living what is left of the lives some of us have! Very fed up with so many posts wanting Boris gone! I am not a Tory nor a Labour supporter. I find Starmer as repulsive & ridiculous as Boris & 99% of all politicians past & present! Boris was slung in at the deep end when the pandemic hit & tried his best! Cannot see anyone else who would have bumbled on rather than running away! This is all in the past now & unless we find a DeLorean will not be altered! So can we just be thankful that we are here & stop this as it only causes friction on a site that I come to listen to other than he did/she said etc! Waiting for the mudslinging my way now but I will not click on any more threads like this as I have too much else to worry about ok?

Why the attack on Starker then? Is that for balance? You are your own namesake

Birthday cake versus Russian boots encroaching on an independent European Country, I know which I am more concerned about…

partygate is subject to two separate investigations, if/when the results are published if PM is found guilty he should resign. No ifs or buts.

In the meantime the Government’s job is to run the U.K.

Are you on something Mummer? I haven’t a clue what you mean.

Utterly sick in the true sense of the word. Perhaps it's the fact that 'er indoors was 100% confident that she could (and still can) do WHATEVER SHE WANTS and get away with it that's the most damning aspect of this one? Poor kids brought up in a conservative house......like being brainwashed to think a cult is a normal family?

Sillynanny321 - the breaking news I posted about had nothing to do with Cummings. I am sure you must realise that when people believe they have been lied to they get angry, and when they get angry mud is often slung.

You will have seen from this thread alone that many people have sacrificed attending or organising milestone celebrations because they obeyed the rules. They have every right to be angry when they see the hypocrisy of those who imposed the rules repeatedly flouting them.

Sillynanny321 - with the best will in the world, many topics discussed inthe News and politics forum generates strong feelings so if you don't like mudslinging it might be best to avoid this thread. The House of Commons has become a nest of vipers, with certain MPs preferring to use it for campaigning and slinging personal abuse at others who disagree with them rather than providing reasons for supporting serious policy proposals and new legislation.

Let's not be misled by the suggestions about Johnson being ambushed or ambushed by cake. I've read that Johnson's wife organised the birthday cake "gathering". Can someone explain why would she ambush him? It just shows she didn't think about or understand the rules.

This is more serious than birthday cake. And let's not forget that it all kicked off with Johnson thinking he could single-handedly to change the rules about the conduct of MPs, which have always been handled by an independent process, just to get his mate Owen Paterson off the hook.

This episode shows the sort of person Johnson is and that he is totally unfit - IMHO - for public office.