No.227 - Partygate - 'And the Answer was …'

Dear James,

It was simple. Boris’s response, at PMQs yesterday, to the now infamous Allegra Stratton question of ‘What’s the answer?’ was true to character. ‘It wasn’t me mate! Honest gov! I was just passing by when the burglars smashed the windows and grabbed the jewellery! I’m mortified. The poor owners!  To lose such precious sparklers! I know how they feel! It must have been awful!’

No one believed him. It was pure humbug. ‘I apologize unreservedly for the impression created’ by the events of the last few days. ‘I have been repeatedly reassured that no party took place and all Covid rules were followed.’ He dug deeper, ‘ I understand the anger and how infuriating it must have been’, for those who lost loved ones during the pandemic. He was ‘sick and horrified’ by their behaviour and was asking the Cabinet Secretary to undertake a full investigation of the facts.

So Boris is the innocent victim of a small number of wayward underlings that have let him down badly. He’s sorry for ‘the impression that has been created.’ That’s the ‘impression’ that has been brewing ever since he came into government and long before and has its origins in the character of the PM himself. Boris has presided over a culture of triumphalist impregnability that has infused your party since Boris’s victory in 2019 and the ‘success’ of ‘Getting Brexit Done.’ It is this that accounts for all the scandals that have ripped through your party since 2019. The hard work of governing is not Boris’s idea of fun. He achieved all he is going to achieve on that day in December 2019. Everything since then has been one long disaster.  He expected the party to last for ever but unfortunately for him, reality got in they way.   

Yesterday the blond Muppet read from his script hardly looking up at the opposition and only occasionally addressing the speaker in one of his empty histrionic flourishes. The Chamber was full. The Tory benches were glum and dumb as the Prime Minister pleaded that he had been the unfortunate victim of a small group of his party who had gone beyond the bounds of public decency. His performance was excruciating, his explanation totally unconvincing.  His front bench stared emptily through their face masks, no doubt grateful that they offered some sort of protection from revealing their true embarrassment as they listened to Boris yet again attempting to ‘polish a turd’. And by the end of the session, there was still no explanation of what happened on December 12th last year.

Your party James, is based upon unremitting loyalty to the cause of maintaining the social and political status quo. (Your forebears learned a lot from the French Revolution!) That loyalty is being tested to destruction by the current Downing Street incumbent. Everyone, including more and more of your own party, is tired of the man, his implausibility and his non-excuses.  

Later yesterday Allegra Stratton, aka Boris’s scapegoat, made a tearful resignation speech outside her home. Later still, Boris announced that Plan B for the latest Omikron Covid variant was being ‘brought forward’. Even some of your own backbenchers claimed that this was a ‘diversionary tactic’.

What a day James! But in the long run just another in a long string of U-turns, scandals, fudges, rule breaking and lies.  No leadership, no morality, no honesty, no competence and now zero credibility.

James, I can’t wait to see your next round robin ‘explaining’ – or should that be ‘exculpating’ – your great leader! Actually, on reflection, I think your best response would be a sullen silence? Yesterday’s damage is irreparable. 

BH – Your Concerned Constituent