It was such a lovely day that I didn't catch up with PMQs until later this afternoon. And there it was. This clumsy "payrolled employment" from Johnson. Is this a British Nationalist Party PC move? Is the bit of the party that is in power now, controlling his language as well as his policies?
In the end, I had to find out why. So here we have it. At the Liason Committee, it was shown that his claims about the comparative numbers in work were not true. This time, with no Boris Believers around to try and bleet at those saying this so they couldn't be heard, he had to admit it.
Now, I love how these committees speak truth to power. However, I know some of you are happy with the lies. "Move on," they say every time Johnson is caught out. "Nothing to see here" they hiss. Or, worst of all, they will use another lie to try and flatten talk contradicting the latest Johnson catchy line they want to go on using. They tell us 'everyone' is doing it. If they can't paint Johnson as a truthful man, they lie and paint all other politicians as liars.
So, having admitted to the Liason Committee that he was wrong to claim we have "record numbers of people now back in work", he doesn't want to let go. We (those who care to find out) know what he was saying wasn't true. But the Daily Mail loved it, the Telegraph loved it and all the far-right loved it. So he couldn't tell the truth, could he? How would "There are more people on payrolls, but the large drop in the number of people who are self-employed means total employment is down" work with the ex-Brexit babes who want just three words with no regard to facts?
But another nail in the coffin of the middle classes; surely, that is not what the real conservatives want? The destruction of the nation's small businesses? My conservative friends don't seem to see this as a good idea. A real conservative, of which there are few in the current British Nationalist-run party we now have in power, would be horrified. So he splutters out with the claim that there are “More than half a million people back on the payroll than there were before the pandemic began".
I'm sorry but all I can think about is the poor people who lost their businesses and the country that has lost the building blocks of the future.
