No. 226 - 'What's the Answer, Prime Minister?'

Dear James,

What’s the answer, James? What’s the answer, Prime Minister?’ Today the Tory Party disaster continues along its inevitable track towards doom and destruction.  Last night a video was revealed showing Allegra Stratton, Boris’s one time Press Secretary, practising handling questions from a hostile press, in the union flag bedecked, ‘never to be launched’ Downing Street News Centre. The date was December 18th 2020, just a week after the country had been placed in Tier 3 lockdown and on the day that 514 of our compatriots died of Covid 19. People who were breaking lockdown rules were being arrested. But in Downing Street, the mood was relaxed, even jocular. A spoof journalist asked Allegra about ‘a party’ that had been held in Downing Street a few days previously. “Do you recognise this description?’ she was asked.  “Would the prime minister condone having a Christmas party?’. Allegra hesitates, breaks into smiles and laughter and asks, ‘What’s the answer?’The group of senior officials sitting around break into their own forms of privileged mirth. “Will cheese and wine’ be alright?' ‘It was a business meeting, right?’, Allegra asks weakly. More laughter.

Boris Johnson has consistently said that ‘no rules were broken’. His spokesman has denied that such a party took place. A spokesperson for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice said: “There are simply no words to describe how upsetting and shameful it is then to hear Boris Johnson’s team laughing about breaking the rules they had made, whilst others followed them and could only say goodbye to their loved ones through a screen. It’s the behaviour of people who think they’re above us.”  Last night, ‘I’m a Celebrity’ hosts Ant and Dec declared that they “categorically deny” any suggestion they had held a party in the Welsh castle. Your government James has become a national joke at best. At worst it has become a disgrace. Boris Johnson and his government has made a mockery of their ow rules and regulations. It’s one rule for them, another for us. 

Boris Johnson has always been the ‘wide boy’ or ‘Flash Harry’ of the privileged classes. Members of those classes may recognize a different appellation. Flashman was a character in Tom Brown’s School Days and, while rising to the highest rank in the British army was still, at base a ‘scoundrel, “a liar, a cheat, a thief, a coward—and, oh yes, a toady." Those who have attended public school or who know the public school type will recognise the character. Each school had one. Or two. The Tory Party knew Boris was this man when they elected him to the leadership in 2019 and they knew they were taking a risk. That risk is now revealed in all its ghastly glory.

The problem for your party James is that most people in positions of responsibility in our country still, adhere largely to the values of integrity, honesty and respect for the facts of any situation. Such values are locked into our professional and non-professional cultures everywhere and when they are flouted the miscreant is unceremoniously ejected. That clearly no longer applies to our government. Again and again over the last four years we have seen lie after lie and falsehood after falsehood emanating from Boris and his government. Only extremely rarely has any one resigned as a result. When every value that people in positions of responsibility have lived by is seen to be broken by their Prime Minister they are appalled.

This morning radio interviews were cancelled by Tory Ministers. ‘No one is available to speak to us’, bemoaned the broadcasters. Can you blame them? Who would want to come forward to defend the indefensible? Dominic Cummings - remember him? - tweeted  that  Downing Street had lied about the party, calling it “very unwise”.

Number Ten this morning must be in meltdown. Your own backbenchers are in turmoil. Their fury has been summed up by words such as, ‘appalling, unbelievable, incredulous, exasperating, catastrophic’. This government of mixed messages, downright untruths and refusal to apologize has shaken our nation to its foundations. With the new Omicron variant of Covid threatening, who will be listening to its public health messages? Sir Graham Brady, Chairman of the 1922 Committee’ will be watching very carefully when, at midday today, the Prime Minister stands up to answer questions at PMQs. ‘Was there a party Boris?’ ‘Did it adhere to all the Covid rules?” ‘What’s the answer Boris? What’s the answer James?”

Behind this question, of course, there is a much bigger question that also needs an answer. ‘Was this man ever fit to be Prime Minister?”

Most thinking people will have made up their minds long ago, James.

BH – Your Concerned Constituent.