Is this tantamount to gagging order?

The longer it takes to publish this report, the less likely most of us are to believe the contents. The problem I have is that I don't believe anything that Johnson says, once a liar, always a liar as far as I am concerned. Those members of the public who excuse him because 'he was working hard' or 'it's only a bit of cage, get over it' are worse than Johnson himself, they are falling for the propaganda and failing to see what this is really about; a liar in charge.

Senior Tories have joined opposition MPs in demanding the report on No 10 lockdown parties be published in full.

MP Sir Christopher Chope accused the Met Police of an "abuse of power", amid concerns senior civil servant Sue Gray will leave out crucial findings.

Doubts over how complete the report will be came after the Met asked her to make "minimal reference" to events they are looking at.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60183030

Do read the splendid column by Matthew Paris in yesterday's Times headed " Spineless Tories know that Johnson must go ".He says what a lot of us are thinking.Where are the Tories who will speak out.
"One is put in mind of Jeremy Corbyn's catastrophic leadership of the Labour Party , and the cringeworthy media interviews with perfectly sane Labour MPs feigning positivity." This as he quotes the pathetic excuses churned out.

Next time a Johnson apologist trots out the "we all did it" or "what a fuss about a bit of cake" defences, here's a handy reference for how all the excuses they've come up with don't amount to a hill of beans. Good riposte to the Oh, but vaccines! cry as well.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/30/note-to-boris-johnson-sad-apologists-stop-treating-the-public-as-if-they-are-fools

Lincslass

Madashell

Time for Proportional Representation - too much power in one party we do not live in a democracy. Reading Jasmine Alibai-Brown this week, her contacts in Africa told her that Britain is now a Banana Monarchy - so true.

Coming from that women, and Africa, no notice taken. Africa is riddled with corruption so pot kettle etc.

What a daft comment, Lincslass. If Africa is riddled with corruption then they will be truly expert at identifying fellow banana republics. You surely know the old saying "It takes one to know one"?

(Mind you, 'Africa' is not a country, but an enormous continent containing many individual countries. It's probably incorrect and insulting to label the entire continent as corrupt)

Madashell

Time for Proportional Representation - too much power in one party we do not live in a democracy. Reading Jasmine Alibai-Brown this week, her contacts in Africa told her that Britain is now a Banana Monarchy - so true.

Coming from that women, and Africa, no notice taken. Africa is riddled with corruption so pot kettle etc.

Daisymae

The report should be published in full now. People will have to draw their own conclusions if there's a convenient delay. I'd like to say how stupid do they think we are, but I think on balance pretty stupid.

And more stupid still if they win the next election.

Mollygo

I’m fascinated by the sinless on here. Or is it only a sin if it was to do with Covid.

I don’t understand why some people find it so difficult to accept that most people did the right thing and obeyed the rules. The government set the rules, the rules caused hardship to a lot of people but most still followed them, driven by the need to look after themselves and their families, and also by a sense of community. It would seem that those who set the rules found it too difficult to comply with them when the chance to party presented itself. Sod self preservation, sod their families and sod the British public. Sod the fact that thousands have died and thousands more are grieving relatives who died alone because people followed the rules. Trying to find fault with each other doesn’t excuse what they did and the contempt that was shown for the public. The government work for us, not the other way around and I really hope that’s something that’s brought home to them at the next election.

LuckyFour

I agree the parties at No 10 were a disgrace, but how many people out there (and on gransnet) can honestly say they did not break the rules even the slightest bit. Did you see your family of five when only four were allowed, did you meet friends during lockdown. Did you tell yourself 'well it was only one small gathering, one meeting, one family birthday party' etc. I can't stand the constant 'holier than thous'. The people who suffered most were those in nursing homes who couldn't see their family when they needed them most. But I think we should all look at ourselves before we start criticising others. I went to the funeral of a close family member and we went back to the house afterwards. There weren't too many of us actually but perhaps more than was allowed but we told ourselves it was ok. We make excuses for ourselves while find fault with others.

I can. And it’s not a holier than thou attitude, it was and still is from necessity. I live with my partner and my 91 year old mum. We’re all CEV - immunosuppressed. Mum is 91 and has dementia. We only ventured over the doorstep to attend essential appointments - mostly medical. All shopping done online. Hardly moved for two years and no one got over my doorstep unless it was absolutely necessary. We’re still shielding to a certain extent on medical advice and still receiving department of health emails reminding us that the pandemic is not over, and to continue to be cautious. We’ve not long had our fourth jabs but I’m still not letting up while Covid rates are so bad in England. This government have proved they don’t care about anyone but themselves so why should I trust their motives for relaxing pandemic rules ?

Partygate and the subsequent police cover up
Shambolic handling of the pandemic.
Authorising animal charity personnel and animals to exit Afghanistan whilst leaving behind British nationals.
Refusal to mitigate the impending huge energy price rise.
Pressing ahead with a tax rise (National Insurance) at a time when people can least afford it.
The lies and cover ups associated with all of this and the absolute contempt for the British public in general…………

To name but a few. We can only hope that the electorate have long memories when the general election rolls round. It’s not just Boris, it’s all of them as far as I’m concerned. The utter contempt shown to the British public is breathtaking. Boris seems to have surrounded himself with people who have no respect for him, or the office he holds, he spends most of his time trying to deflect various accusations and denying any knowledge of events seemingly going on under his nose. So we have no clear idea of who exactly is leading. Not exactly the ideal situation when you consider the seriousness of the situation between Russia and Ukraine is it ?

Not at all surprised. DH and I were talking about it a few days ago (before it was announced) and that it might happen so as not to interfere with the police investigation.

My heart goes out to anyone with family in the armed forces.

Someone on another forum just said how relieved they felt having Johnson as PM at such a dangerous time. And he was serious. I envy people that aren’t terrified that the safety of this country is in this man’s hands.

MayBee70

On the news now. Johnson going to Eastern Europe and talk of deploying the military….

Jesus. It's to be hoped that the military top brass have a bit more sense than Johnson. Such a shame that no-one can put him in a straitjacket...

….photoshoot of him stood next to a map and then leaning on a chair looking serious.

On the news now. Johnson going to Eastern Europe and talk of deploying the military….

You just know he's going to turn up on the news riding in a tank, with camouflage on, pretending to be a soldier ??‍♀️

westendgirl

I fail to see how it is not obvious that Johnson is out of his depth.How can people defend him ?He has said that his method is to make one gaffe after the other, so many that people and the press are confused. Is this the leader you want for this country and your grandchildren ?I don't . He will not change .

And now he’s phoning Putin to stop him going to war. What could possibly go wrong.

We have obeyed all the rules throughout the period of the pandemic, as have all of our family.

It is just too easy for the right wing tabloids to suggest that we've all broken the rules. So it doesn't matter.

Some of their readers might have ignored the rules but I am pretty sure that they, like the entitled ministers, spads and civil servants who partied as much as they liked, are in a MINORITY.

JaneJudge, You don’t have to have a faith to try and care and protect others. It’s not an age thing either. Millions have done throughout Covid. Millions of others haven’t bothered, including some members of the current government.

I fail to see how it is not obvious that Johnson is out of his depth.How can people defend him ?He has said that his method is to make one gaffe after the other, so many that people and the press are confused. Is this the leader you want for this country and your grandchildren ?I don't . He will not change .

if we are going for the what would Jesus do angle, I did what Jesus would do and I tried to protect and care as much as I could and I have no faith and I am not Catholic

Time for Proportional Representation - too much power in one party we do not live in a democracy. Reading Jasmine Alibai-Brown this week, her contacts in Africa told her that Britain is now a Banana Monarchy - so true.

We don't have family in France but we have friends and I or we are in various groups -book club, discussion group, garden association, franglais etc etc. I can honestly say that we didn't see any of these friends during the various lockdowns here.

We were allowed to go for walks and I do know that a few friends occasionally went for walks in the forests which ended with a little rendezvous. I didn't because my asthma is bad and there's no way I could do the distances that they do. Sometimes I even I have problems walking to the top of our drive to collect the post.

It's possible that if I was a good walker I might have gone on a walk and bumped into one or two people. Standing several feet away from people, all under different trees doesn't seem too bad. However, I didn't and we didn't meet up with anyone at all.

The main reason being that we didn't want to catch covid and the second reason being not wanting to pass anything on to someone else if we caught it inadvertently on our occasional visits to the shops, or vet or doctor. We also think that as our lives are getting shorter there are still things we want to do.

I firmly believe that the vast majority of people in age group feel the same. I'm aware that GN is self selecting but over the last two years there have been countless posts from people missing their families, not seeing their new GCs or GGCs and more heart breaking, those who couldn't their dying loved ones or go to funerals.

My response to anyone who says otherwise, about any of you who agree with me, is two fingers - not a la Churchill.

I used to wonder how people fell under the spell of Hitler.

No longer, this is a living and real lesson.

Trump supporters are another lot.