Thread: Prime Minister Boris Johnson

^

the article was written by rachel reeves, a labour mp , so what do you expect it to say.

Shooting the messenger...again.

All you numpties do these days.

oh ffs cyrille.

for a socialist she's actually a decent mp, supporting immigration controls, benefit cuts, israel, hs2 and quantitative easing, but obviously her views about boris are biased according to her political leanings.

....... but she has got a bee in her bonnet about these ridiculous accusations of cronyism.

Originally Posted by taxexile

....... but she has got a bee in her bonnet about these ridiculous accusations of cronyism.

The examples she cites are incorrect? Serious question

What's 'ridiculous' about them?

Its been 72-75K for some time. There has been a problem recruiting for years. About 4 years ago they rebadged a certain cohort of recruits to trained strength to boost numbers. It has fuk all to do with cuts just the reality of kids not wanting to join the armed forces.

^ Boris is making cuts to the armed forces having promised not to do so. There is very little wriggle room and Keir Starmer is right to question such action.

Originally Posted by strigils

It has fuk all to do with cuts

Defence review: British army to be cut to 72,500 troops by 2025

The British army will be at its smallest since 1752.

Defence review: British army to be cut to 72,500 troops by 2025 - BBC News



Boris Johnson breaks manifesto pledge by cutting 10,000 army troops

Boris Johnson breaks manifesto pledge by cutting 10,000 army troops | HeraldScotland

Originally Posted by strigils

It has fuk all to do with cuts

Even The Daily Telegraph says it's a cut!

Army troop numbers will be cut to the smallest in history as fully trained soldiers fall to 72,500 and a Battalion will be lost in the biggest revamp since the Second World War....

British Army numbers cut to smallest in history as revamp revealed in Defence Review

snivel

Even The Daily Telegraph says it's a cut!

and what exactly is your point?

you don't even live in the uk you hypocritical loudmouth, yet after scurrying off to teach privileged kids for a tax free salary in some oil rich state with a human rights, slavery and misogyny record that would put attila the hun to shame you still come on here time after time to signal your leftist virtues like a brainwashed schoolboy wanking off to images of greta.

if you had any balls and were true to your beliefs you would be in gaza or afghanistan teaching kids who really do need some help.

loser.

What a horrifying thread. Just like the trump threads. Both the same level of stupid.

Pathetic.

Originally Posted by bsnub

Just like the trump threads. Both the same level of stupid.

At least TD's trumptards do have a counterargument, however ridiculous.

Unlike taxi who just goes for ad hom or simply doesn't support his 'points', and stringbean who just denies the facts.

08/02/2021:

Originally Posted by taxexile

but she has got a bee in her bonnet about these ridiculous accusations of cronyism.

Originally Posted by panama hat

The examples she cites are incorrect? Serious question

Originally Posted by cyrille

What's 'ridiculous' about them?

*crickets*

Originally Posted by taxexile

you don't even live in the uk

Not living in the UK means that the cuts aren't real? What a strange argument.

Originally Posted by Troy

Not living in the UK means that the cuts aren't real? What a strange argument.

He is senile.

and you lom are an obtuse little oik of little worth and even less intelligence..

The rats in the sack are turning on each other...

‘Mad and totally unethical’: Dominic Cummings hits out at Boris Johnson

Ex-aide alleges PM tried to quash leak inquiry that implicated ally and wanted donors to fund work on flat

Dominic Cummings has launched an unprecedented and extraordinary attack on Boris Johnson, alleging that the prime minister tried to quash a leak inquiry as it implicated an ally, and hatched a “possibly illegal” plan for donors to pay to renovate his flat.


The outburst by Cummings, a day after anonymous No 10 sources claimed that he had leaked private text messages between Johnson and the billionaire James Dyson, prompted Labour to accuse the government of “fighting each other like rats in a sack”.


Cummings used a lengthy post on his personal blog to deny any leaking. Instead, he accused Johnson and his team of a series of wrongdoings. He said the prime minister had behaved in a way he considered “mad and totally unethical”, and warned that he would happily give evidence under oath to an inquiry.


“It is sad to see the PM and his office fall so far below the standards of competence and integrity the country deserves,” he wrote.


Such a damning intervention by the man who was Johnson’s key ally and ideological inspiration will deeply alarm the prime minister and his aides. Cummings is due to give evidence to MPs next month.


Cummings, who left Downing Street in November, dismissed the accusation, in an anonymous briefing to several newspapers on Thursday, that he had leaked the texts between Dyson and Johnson.


In the exchanges last March, the prime minister appeared to promise the businessman that he would “fix” an issue on the tax status of Dyson staff working in the UK during the pandemic.


Cummings said he had checked his phone and had not been forwarded the messages in question. He claimed he had been told by Downing Street officials that Dyson’s office had emailed screenshots of his exchanges with Johnson to a series of officials, including some at the Treasury, and that this was what had been leaked. He said he had not been copied into this.


“I am happy to meet with the cabinet secretary and for him to search my phone for Dyson messages,” he wrote. “If the PM did send them to me, as he is claiming, then he will be able to show the cabinet secretary on his own phone when they were sent to me.


“I am also happy to publish or give to the cabinet secretary the PM/Dyson messages that I do have, which concerned ventilators, bureaucracy and Covid policy – not tax issues.”


Cummings also addressed reports suggesting he had been the serial leaker known as the “chatty rat”, who had also allegedly leaked news of another Covid lockdown last autumn.


In perhaps the most potentially devastating allegation in his blogpost, Cummings claimed that in a meeting after the leak, the cabinet secretary, Simon Case, told him and Johnson that “all the evidence” pointed to Henry Newman, then an adviser at the Cabinet Office, who has since moved to No 10. Newman is known to be close to Carrie Symonds, Johnson’s fiancee, seen as a key figure in Cummings’ removal from his job.


Cummings wrote: “The PM was very upset about this. He said to me afterwards: ‘If Newman is confirmed as the leaker, then I will have to fire him, and this will cause me very serious problems with Carrie as they’re best friends … [pause] Perhaps we could get the cabinet secretary to stop the leak inquiry?’


“I told him that this was ‘mad’ and totally unethical, that he had ordered the inquiry himself and authorised the cabinet secretary to use more invasive methods than are usually applied to leak inquiries because of the seriousness of the leak. I told him that he could not possibly cancel an inquiry about a leak that affected millions of people just because it might implicate his girlfriend’s friends.”


Cummings did not give any further explanation of what he meant by the “more invasive methods”, or whether they had been used.


He said he had warned some officials about Johnson’s plans, and that they would give evidence under oath to an inquiry, adding: “I also have WhatsApp messages with very senior officials about this matter which are definitive.”


On Friday night, No 10 said: “The PM has never interfered in a government leak inquiry.”


Finally, Cummings said he had warned Johnson about renovations to his Downing Street flat costing a reported £58,000, for which the prime minister had allegedly sought outside funding from Conservative supporters.


He wrote: “I told him I thought his plans to have donors secretly pay for the renovation were unethical, foolish, possibly illegal and almost certainly broke the rules on proper disclosure of political donations if conducted in the way he intended… I refused to help him organise these payments.”


Cummings said Johnson had stopped speaking to him about the issue in 2020 after he said this, adding: “I would be happy to tell the cabinet secretary or Electoral Commission what I know concerning this matter.”


He also accused the new head of communications at Downing Street, Jack Doyle, of having given the briefing to newspapers on Thursday.


Earlier, the government sought to close down the renovations controversy by releasing a statement saying no outside finance had been involved.


The statement, released on Friday by a Cabinet Office minister, Nicholas True, revealed that contractors had been brought in to paint, sand and refresh floorboards. But Lord True added: “Any costs of wider refurbishment in this year have been met by the prime minister personally.”


After the release of Cummings’ blog, No 10 responded: “At all times, the government and ministers have acted in accordance with the appropriate codes of conduct and electoral law. Cabinet Office officials have been engaged and informed throughout and official advice has been followed.


“All reportable donations are transparently declared and published – either by the Electoral Commission or the House of Commons registrar, in line with the requirements set out in electoral law.


“Gifts and benefits received in a ministerial capacity are, and will continue to be, declared in transparency returns.”


Cummings had written the issues needed to be handled by “an urgent parliamentary inquiry into the government’s conduct over the Covid crisis”.


He concluded: “Issues concerning Covid and/or the PM’s conduct should not be handled as No 10 has handled them over the past 24 hours. I will cooperate fully with any such inquiry and am happy to give evidence under oath.”


Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, said the government had “spent the last 24 hours lurching between cover-ups and cock-ups”. She added: “The Conservatives are fighting each other like rats in a sack and slipping deeper and deeper into the mire of sleaze. It shows breathtaking contempt for the country.”

‘Mad and totally unethical’: Dominic Cummings hits out at Boris Johnson | Boris Johnson | The Guardian

Originally Posted by cyrille

“It is sad to see the PM and his office fall so far below the standards of competence and integrity the country deserves,” he wrote.

This from Cummings, the man that led the Brexit campaign, and lost any integrity he might have had with the Covid journey to Durham.

We are talking about politicians, a bred alongside lawyers, pimps and drug dealers who are some of the most self serving bottom feeding scum in society and you lot are surprised or just naive.

Bojo in the news again, and no sensible observer finds it implausible that he made such an appalling remark. It's what he does.

Boris Johnson faced mounting pressure on Monday night as Conservative insiders added weight to claims that the prime minister said he would rather see bodies pile up than order another lockdown.

Faced with fury from relatives of the bereaved, Johnson and senior ministers emphatically denied he said “no more fucking lockdowns – let the bodies pile high in their thousands” after reluctantly approving a second England-wide lockdown late last year.

The claim followed a briefing war at the weekend between Johnson and his former chief aide Dominic Cummings, who resigned from Downing Street after what was believed to be a power struggle with the prime minister’s fiancee, Carrie Symonds. The government is also facing growing calls for a public inquiry into a pandemic that left the UK with one of the worst death tolls among major economies last year.

First reported in the Daily Mail on Monday, Johnson’s alleged comments were supposedly made after he felt corralled into agreeing to a four-week lockdown in November, months after it was recommended by Sage scientists to curb soaring coronavirus cases. He apparently warned he would never again back another national lockdown.

ITV reported source claims that the “let the bodies pile high” comments were shouted from an office in Downing Street after a crunch meeting with ministers, rather than during the meeting.

Speaking to the Guardian, a source corroborated that account and hinted that the comments had been heard by a small number of people, outside Johnson’s office. A second source, who did not hear the comments directly, said there had been “chatter” about them in Downing Street last year, though the phrase the source expressly recalled was “no more fucking lockdowns … no matter the consequences”.

The source said they understood the comments to have been made in frustration and underlined that the prime minister went ahead with a third lockdown in January.

Despite on-the-record denials from Johnson and his spokesperson, the BBC also said it had confirmed the remarks with sources, and said they said were made “during a heated discussion in No 10”.

Michael Gove, the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, defended the prime minister in the House of Commons on Monday. “I was in the meeting that afternoon with the prime minister and other ministers … the prime minister made a decision in that meeting to trigger a second lockdown, he made his subsequent decision to trigger a third lockdown,” he told the House of Commons.

“This is a prime minister who’s been in a hospital himself in intensive care. The idea that he would say any such thing I find incredible. I was in that room, I never heard language of that kind.”

One source who spoke to the Guardian said Gove did not hear the comments himself, and suggested that ministers who did not know if the comments were true or not should not deny them so strongly.

Amid growing anger over the alleged comments, Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, said: “[Johnson has] degraded the office he holds with rampant and overwhelming sleaze. But making light of the more than 127,000 deaths that happened on his watch and then trying to cover it up is a new low. This must now end.”

The Scottish National party said the prime minister should resign if it was proved that he made the remarks. There have been suggestions that Cummings has taped evidence to back up claims he is poised to make when he gives evidence to MPs next month.

For members of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group, the alleged comments were “a punch in the stomach to all those grieving” and compounded their anger at the government’s claim it would be too busy for months to launch a public inquiry into the UK’s handling of the pandemic.

Dozens of grieving families took to social media to post pictures and memories of loved ones they lost saying they “were not a body”.

Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice said Johnson’s “callous comments will have caused untold hurt to thousands of us. It said that, despite seven requests, Johnson has declined to meet with the group.

“These ‘bodies’ were our loved ones,” it said. “Mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, brothers and sisters, grandparents, husbands and wives. Those who have lost loved ones already have to cope with the lack of dignity many of their loved ones faced as they passed.

“Is it too much to ask that the prime minister would be sympathetic and respectful to our loss? This demonstrates exactly why an urgent inquiry is so vital, to understand the decisions and considerations in protecting our loved ones that the government chose.”

Johnson said suggestions he had made the remarks about letting bodies pile up were “total rubbish”. He said: “What I certainly think is that this country has done an amazing job with the lockdowns. And they’ve been very difficult. And they’ve been very tough for people. And there’s no question about that.

“Nobody wants to go into a lockdown, but they’ve helped us. The discipline the public has shown has helped us to get the numbers of cases down very considerably.” Johnson’s official spokesperson also denied the claims to reporters. “This is untrue and he has denied [saying] that.”

Pressure mounts on Johnson over alleged ‘let the bodies pile high’ remarks | Boris Johnson | The Guardian

I read somewhere that BoJo was hammered by David Cummings for disastrous Covid response and for many other issues, claiming that he said "let the bodies pile high"...

Wondering whether is it true, many UK subjects here will surely know...

(just seeing somebody does already know...)

Originally Posted by Klondyke

Wondering whether is it true, many UK subjects here will surely know...

Other people's requirements for 'surely knowing' something are evidently much higher than yours are.

And it's Dominic Cummings.

Originally Posted by cyrille

And it's Dominic Cummings.

Thanks, I will make the correction in my database, also for Dominic Cameron

Good one.