So much gone wrong in our politics and national statecraft. Is the tide turning? Emeritus Professor, BCU. Posts in personal capacity, as academic and citizen.
My youngest grandson is just three years of age. He's lived through two monarchs, three Prime Ministers, exit from the EU, a pandemic, a war in Europe and an energy crisis.
The shame and humiliation of a British Prime Minister - yes, a British Prime Minister - hiring a lawyer to complete a questionnaire under caution as part of a criminal investgation.
Those who voted for Johnson because of Brexit, or because they liked his 'character', or even because they just fancied a bit of a laugh, are going to have the shock of their lives over the next six months.
Will
@DurhamPolice
tell us when they intend to re-open the investigation into Covid law-breaking by Dominic Cummings in Spring 2020, given story concocted in/corroborated by Downing Street, even he now admits, was fabricated. That constitutes perverting the course of justice.
#Twitter
needs to suspend the account of
@NadineDorries
for circulating persistent, deliberate and doctored disinformation. Treat this as a formal complaint. Minister for Culture! Encapsulates the corruption now endemic in Johnson's Government.
In just one ill-judged speech, to please his tiny band of faithful Party supporters, Johnson has shredded what little credibility he had left on the international stage.
Johnson delayed and dithered during pandemic; Javid ignoring public health responsibilities; Raab lounged on beach as chaos unfolded in Afghanistan; Sunak sitting on sidelines as poverty soars; Rees-Mogg wasting everyone's time searching for non-existent Brexit opportunities.
The police have no confidence in Patel; the teaching profession regards Willamson with contempt; Javid is a disaster zone for health workers; Dowden has left the highly successful creative industries in a state of despair; and Johnson is an embarrassment to all and sundry.
Reason we're facing higher taxes for poorer, fewer public services is very simple: recurring under-performance of UK economy since 2010. Combination of austerity, Brexit and poorly controlled pandemic. There is no basis for regarding Tories as Party of economic competence.
Slowly dawning on
@Conservatives
- and their
@DailyMailUK
cheerleaders - that Durham Police investigation into Starmer could spectacularly backfire on themselves. Further increases intensity of focus on Boris Johnson's own law-breaking; so may prove entirely counter-productive.
Through a foolish decision to make Boris Johnson Leader, the Conservative Party has seriously damaged reputations of itself, Downing Street, the Civil Service, Parliament and the Metroplitan Police, whilst also exposing the Monarch to illegal advice and disrespectful behaviour.
The last twelve months has demonstrated just how quickly a country can decline under a poor leader dependent on a bizarre political adviser. The Johnson regime falls short on virtually every conceivable measure of good governance: integrity, honesty, ensuring public safety...
"...after twelve years of Conservative government, Britain is rundown, stagnant, expensive, underpaid, unequal, corrupt, socially fractured, backward-looking, hungry, tired and fearful...
Dislodging Johnson is just a start." James Butler, London Review of Books, 21 July.
Becoming increasingly clear Biden intends to clean up American Government. Means there are likely to be revelations about endemic corruption during years since 2016. That is potentially explosive for Johnson, Gove and Farage too, given networks that linked Brexit and Trump.
How did we regress from a vibrant creative society, enthusiastically embracing the future during the Blair era - epitomised in the opening ceremony of 2012 London Olympics - to the reactionary, introverted country, clinging onto worn-out myths, that we now appear to have become?
Evidence indicates UK policy now driven by three factors (1) Johnson's desperation to save himself by appeasing right-wing backbenchers (2) 'new austerity' being imposed by Sunak (3) influence of rich (not just Russian) Party donors. Public interest doesn't enter into equation.
Johnson either knew all along when he signed the EU Withdrawal Agreement that he intended to ditch it after serving its short-term electoral purpose, or he was oblivious to its implications. Either perfidious or clueless. Whichever it is, this man is not fit for public office.
Sajid Javid makes appalling judgement call in first move as new Health Secretary, recklessly proposing to lift covid restrictions on 19 July come what may, just as case numbers driven by Delta variant rising exponentially again. This is the mindset of a market fundamentalist!
Liz Truss has been a Cabinet Minister since 2014. Can anyone recall a single lasting or memorable achievement she has notched up in those eight years of office?
Kwarteng reduces stamp duty to bring purchase of a home within reach of more people. But his fiscal incontinence results in withdrawal of most affordable mortgage deals because of related instability in financial markets. Pure genius!
Sure everyone has noticed Boris Johnson's tendency to go to ground for days on end when things go wrong; then push his way to the front again once there is any opportunity he thinks he can exploit. Just another aspect of his narcissistic personality.
This month I begin my third year on Twitter. Hopefully I have made a small contribution, alongside much more significant ones, in raising awareness of Johnson's complete unfitness for public office. He is an on-going risk to this country's security, safety and well-being.
How Starmer calmly lit the fuse that was later to bring about Johnson's downfall and disgrace. Journalists played a vital role in exposing what was going on. But the LOTO laid the traps that were to provide an evidence trail for the Privileges Committee.
If what we are reading about Johnson's planned resignation honours list and corrupt conditions that are going to be attached to those appointments is borne out, surely this will constitute grounds for triggering yet another police investigation into his abuse of public office.
Johnson has been as feeble in dealing with Kremlin oligarchs and Russian money as was in handling the Afghanistan evacuation - as feeble as he was in controlling the Covid pandemic - as feeble as he had been in agreeing to a Brexit drawing an economic border down the Irish Sea.
• Starmer faces down far-right rioters and criminal hangers on
• Elon Musk makes a fool of himself on his own platform
• Harris overtakes Trump in US presidential race
• Ukraine invades Russia
A week in politics is a long time!!!
The sleaze and corruption surrounding Johnson's Government is now of such magnitude it is breaking through to mainstream media. But never forget it was the
@BylineTimes
and
@GoodLawProject
who led the way in reporting and contesting this serial abuse of public office.
Surely this saga of disappearing WhatsApp messages has reached point where - at very least - there needs to be an independent investigation to establish whether current and former Ministers misled the Covid Inquiry under oath, including Johnson and Sunak.
Johnson lied about the Acuri affair. He sanctioned the lies around the Cummings 'eyesight' saga. He lied about funding for the Number 10 flat refurbishment. He has been caught red-handed lying about 2020 Downing Street Christmas parties. And that's just for starters. Shameful.
UK sanctions will carry little credibility unless the Conservative Party divests itself of all Russian donations and connections with Russian oligarchs.
Just think how many lives might have been saved had
@Keir_Starmer
been in charge at the time of the pandemic instead of the distracted and unserious
@BorisJohnson
All we have had since July is an endless succession of political and royal parades, during which the economic and financial situation of the country has deteriorated from poor to dire.
Growing demands for
@GavinWilliamson
to resign. The point is that any Prime Minister worth the name would have dismissed him last summer, during the exams fiasco. The real problem is that
@BorisJohnson
prioritises his own short-term political interests over the country's needs.
Labour have met the net seat gains from Thursday's elections that many of the pundits said would represent success for them. Conservative net seat losses comfortably exceed what their supporters said would be acceptable damage limitation. Therein lies the true election story!
That Johnson Premiership would end in disgrace not only predictable. It was predicted by some of us from very outset. It was pre-ordained from moment he set forth in Downing Street. Rarely has this country seen such shambolic leadership and public office so demeaned.
If invasion of Ukraine goes ahead and sanctions for Russian oligarchs close to the Putin regime possessing assets in the UK then kick in, does that mean the Conservative Party becomes bankrupt?
So many Cabinet ministers, put politely, are not the sharpest buttons on the planet: Coffey, Dorries, Eustice, Frost, Kwarteng, Patel, Raab and Truss for starters. It's why they're happy to be in Johnson's Government; no self-respecting PM would rate them even as third choices.
Not a single public policy issue definitively resolved during Johnson's tenure in Number 10. What remains 'world beating' until very end of his Premiership is level of corruption, with lavish parties at other people's expense and plans to install more of his cronies in the Lords.
"He's a real nowhere man, sitting in his nowhere land, making all his nowhere plans for nobody, doesn't have a point of view, knows not where he's going to." My latest article
@BylineTimes
A leading campaigner in 1975 EU referendum: 'For Britain to withdraw from Europe would be to retire into an old people's home for fading nations...I do not like the look of some of the wardens." Fast forward nearly 50 years - every word.
Under Cameron political instability took six years to kick in; May and Johnson each took just three years to fall apart; and now Truss implodes in a mere month!
Everything that Matt Hancock claims in his defence is contradicted by one authoritative source or another. Quite extraordinary for the account of a Secretary of State, on a vital matter of life or death, to command so little credibility and respect.
"The Conservative Party has become so closely entangled with a handful of newspapers, owned by three or four billionaires, that it is unable to see how eccentric and often irrelevant the concerns of these papers really are." William Davies , London Review of Books, 4 August.
Johnson at 10: The Inside Story confirms he was clueless about Brexit after 2016 referendum result. Still manoeuvred way into Downing Street. Same source documents how British governance then rapidly descended into chaos. The Tory Party cannot disown this trashing of the country.
Let's be blunt. Johnson's bedrock of support hinges on crude, unscrupulous appeals to precisely the same electoral demographics as Donald Trump: what is known in the psephological trade as low information, emotional voters. Rationality doesn't begin to enter into the equation.
Johnson calculated he could capitalise on England's football success. Now apparently they won't even agree to attend a Downing Street reception because of his squalid political culture wars. So refreshing to see a principled stand - and how it's all horribly backfired on Johnson!
Budget Statements are often received well on the day, only for the small print to cause concern in the days that follow. Sunak's Spring Statement caused concern on the day and with closer inspection looks more and more disastrous, not least for those who desperately need help.
This nonsensical hindsight defence from Johnson. At each critical juncture of pandemic he had numerous people literally screaming the right advice - on every one of these occasions he chose to ignore that advice. Lack of focus, poor judgement and toxic values the real issues.
How does a political party become so dysfuntional that it produces three successive leaders of such poor quality as Johnson, Truss and Sunak
@BylineTimes
Conservative Party is at a crossroads. Either it triggers a leadership election, barring anyone proven to have broken Covid laws from putting names forward. Or entire Party becomes an accomplice in destruction of standards in public life - henceforth to be pilloried for so doing.
Extraordinary thing about bungled Paterson affair is that, as a consequence, Johnson has opened Pandora's box. Suddenly it's a field day on corruption allegations - with his troops scattering far and wide. Must be a long while since there's been such a spectacular own goal!
When a country is misgoverned, to extent now seen in UK, consequences not immediate and precipitous. It is a cumulative process, until disruption to normal life too endemic to avoid. That is the point now being reached, with combined effects of a botched pandemic and hard Brexit.
Johnson claimed he would get on top of Covid in just 12 weeks in March 2020. In January 2022 NHS trusts are declaring critical incidents. His cavalier approach undermines painstakingly built public health expertise, whether Covid-specific or acquired through earlier epidemics.
Three examples of egregious behaviour over last 18 months: Cummings, Hancock and Paterson. In each case Johnson got it spectacularly wrong. How much more evidence do people need that he is unfit for public office - let alone to occupy the highest political position in the land?
We have discarded the quaint British notion of governments suffering from a whiff of scandal. We now have one presiding over a veritable avalanche of mendacity and corruption.
Reminder of £37bn committed to a privatised test-and-trace system. Yet, here we are, in the exponential growth phase of a third/fourth wave of coronavirus. Has there ever been a more scandalous waste of public money, or more haplessly administered project? It's shortcomings...
There is an interesting argument that populist right-wing governments, led by likes of Trump and Johnson, are no longer seriously interested in public policy that improves the well-being of society. Their politics is instead performative. They sustain themselves through...
Feeble attempts by
@michaelgove
and other ministers to justify VIP fast lane for awarding PPE contracts because of exigencies and urgent needs of pandemic crisis: (1) that route has been declared unlawful (2) many established suppliers were ignored, in favour of companies with...
Conservative Governments foisted not just one crisis on the country, Brexit; not just two, parliamentary gridlock under May; not just three, a corrupt liar as PM in Johnson: but four crises, as we suffer too the financial and political chaos unleashed by Truss.
Johnson craved Number Ten. Thought - like everything else in his life - it would be a breeze. Turned into a nightmare. Only way out is to make a humiliating exit. His narcissistic ego won't allow that. Therefore condemned to carry on in purgatory - until electorate release him.
Let's not beat around the bush. Overidding objective of
@Keir_Starmer
is ending Conservative political dominance. Everything else secondary to that imperative in 2022 - and thereafter until next election. Country's appalling mis-governance must be terminated at next opportunity.
Let's not beat around the bush. Over last 12 months, Boris Johnson is responsible for two worst public policy disasters any of us can recall. Loss of life on an unconscionable scale during the pandemic. And disruption of economy and livelihoods through a hard, last-minute Brexit.
As even distressed Ukrainian refugees are discovering, the UK is drowning in infinitely more bureaucracy and red tape than was ever the case when we were a Member State of the European Union.
So much for 'saving Christmas'. Family members tested positive for Covid on very eve of Christmas. Must now be reality for 100,000s of families every day. Meanwhile, our Government simply stands on the sidelines as this virus becomes ever more rampant. Just pathetic!
Johnson made precisely the same mistakes over the second lockdown as he made over the first lockdown. He made exactly the same errors in dealing with Patel as he did in handling Cummings' transgressions back in the spring. Even those prime ministers who struggle initially in...
Johnson still in Downing Street this evening, but as a much diminished figure, having angered his own Party and exposed majority of his MPs to public humiliation.
The real significance of Johnson's latest lockdow is that everything he told us in the weeks before had no basis in scientific fact. The person who - most of all - is entrusted with people's safety and well-being misled the country. There are few charges more serious than that.
Matt Hancock has woven a web of deception around his handling of the pandemic; had demonstrable conflicts of interest; broken the ministerial code; and been found to have acted unlawfully. He should hang his head in shame; as should Johnson for exactly the same reasons.
During six years when Johnson was at the centre of British political life (2016-22) he did incomparable damage to the country's economic and social well-being, its institutional fabric and international standing.
We've seen a collapse of principles of good governance in UK - that in a country formerly regarded as an exemplar of such principles. No need to look far for an explanation. Johnson himself has no commitment to even the most basic ethical standards we shouid expect of a PM.
Johnson's inclination at very beginning was to simply let the covid virus run through the population. He was persuaded otherwise in late March 2020 and January 2021 because of human carnage that would otherwise have happened. Now he's reverted to his original stance. There is...
The scale of corruption that is being revealed is now straying beyond the remit of any 'independent' inquiry, reaching the point where police investigation is warranted.
Matt Hancock has omitted to declare his connection to a company owned by his close family, despite it winning a place on a framework to provide services to the English NHS in 2019, as well as contracts with the NHS in Wales.
At last
#Panorama
mainstream BBC exposure of gold rush for personal protective equipment contracts when the pandemic began, because of lack of preparedness. Disturbingly, many beneficiaries were not previously in the PPE business, whereas established suppliers were overlooked!
Johnson's claim to have 'got all the big calls right'. Paul Taylor, expert on health informatics at UCL, on resisting lockdown in Autumn 2020 in current edition of LRB: "a failure of judgement so catastrophic it should be unimaginable that any political career could survive it."
To reiterate, Reform is NOT a political party but instead a private company, majority owned by Farage. There are no processes or procedures that have to be followed. Just one person's entitlement to impose his own will and pursue his personal whims. Reform is a political mutant.
Don't want anyone ever again to come out with fatuous lament that outcomes of democratic elections make no difference. As Biden reaches first 100 days in office, USA is a country transformed in matter of months. And Americans can sleep soundly in their beds again. Next - the UK!
Because of the ideological myopia of Truss and Kwarteng, along with reckless hints unaccompanied by any substantive detail, everything you value in life and depend upon for essential services now shrouded in uncertainty. Their reckless immaturity becomes everyone else's anxiety.
Johnson's defence that covid ventilator or personal protective equipment contracts were offered on special terms or with special favours because of the urgent needs of the situation falls apart on the most cursory of examinations. Companies who were in the right line of...
It was just a matter of time. Gove has gotten away with far too much, for far too long.
BBC News - Michael Gove investigated by Commons standards watchdog
Reputation of every Conservative MP at stake in today's debate on Privileges Committee Report
@RishiSunak
@Q66Suzi
. Abstention on any vote, or absence, is unacceptable. MPs cannot simultaneously fail to uphold parliamentary standards and still be fit to be elected to Parliament.
At very time that Biden wants unity between democracies, Johnson is sowing discord because of his foolish posturing around Brexit. That, above all, is why UK under Johnson cuts no ice internationally. Forget about 'global Britain'. That only exists in Johnson's befuddled mind.
Only credible account of Johnson's downfall. He was victim of his own reprehensible behaviour. No helping hand required from any other quarter. He was sole author - true to character - of his political disgrace. Devastating summary from
@andrewrawnsley
Johnson is not so much a Prime Minister as the UK's lapse in concentration. No country can countenance this level of embarrassment in the highest political office for very long and maintain it's self respect.
Apparent simplicity of statements from Truss, that she doesn't believe in taxing people then handing money back, conceals something profound. She is denying basic redistributive function of the modern state. And her market fundamentalism will further widen inequalities of wealth.
Those who predicted austerity would do irreparable harm to this country's social fabric have been vindicated;
Those who voted Remain in 2016 EU referendum have been vindicated;
Those who predicted a UK public health disaster because of lack of preparedness are vindicated...
We cannot get on with our everyday lives for a few hours without discovering yet another piece of crass or destructive behaviour from Trump, Johnson or Cummings. That is what is so mentally exhausting. It is why a re-setting of the political compass must - and will - come.