The most infamous cake quote came on the eve of the French revolution from their Queen. “Let them eat cake” as a solution to the poverty of those who could not afford bread became a phrase to sum up just how out of touch governments and elites can become from the reality of the lives of many of those they govern. Marie may never have said it but it is all most people know of her.
More recently Boris Johnson’s famous statement that he was in favour of having cake and of eating it was a welcome dose of common sense and optimism against those who favour austerity and bad choices. There is no point in having cake unless you are going to eat it. Leaving it to go mouldy is a bad plan all round. Selling it to someone else may be a good idea for a producer but for the rest of us the whole point of cake is to eat it. The aim of economic policy should be to allow all those who want it to earn enough to afford cake, and for there to be a good supply with plenty of choice for the cake eaters.
The latest intrusion of cake into our politics has come over whether a birthday cake appeared at a work gathering in Downing Street. If it did did it turn a meeting into a party? Was any cake eaten? Suddenly the pressure was on to show this was a time when cake if had was not eaten so no rules were broken.
Meanwhile Keir Starmer’s keen wish to see all rules applied and all statements to be truthful does not seem to impose these important standards on himself. Drinking a beer with colleagues himself apparently does not constitute a party nor an offence against lockdown rules. Accusing the PM of something he never said about the BBC  is apparently not worthy of a review by the Privileges Committee.
April 26, 2022
I think Joe public are thoroughly fed up with party gate. It’s only being perpetuated by the BBC and sir Kneel.
We all broke the rules becmost of us realised they were stupid.
Now let’s move on. It’s just the latest in the remainiacs kill Boris action.
April 26, 2022
You should be ashamed to admit rules breaking, we didn’t and all the people I have any contact with didn’t. It has been a most strange lonely way to live, but hey! we still haven’t caught Covid/Omicron and now had 4th jab.
April 27, 2022
There are many people who have not had covid (or only very mildly) and who have NOT had any jabs. That was nothing to do with ”breaking rules” or otherwise – as we all know now that the ”rules” didn’t work anyway. You were just lucky, or you ”protected” yourself (by being ”jabbed” four times).
Why continue with this divisive and smugly discriminatory talk? Or don’t you want us to get back to normal where people’s medical choices were their own private concern and not for discussion? Or has it all been too exciting to let go?
April 28, 2022
What is smug about pointing out the advantage of taking the ‘jabs’? Perhaps you are not aware of the nearing 200,000 UK residents who died of Covid, or as a result of their weak vulnerable state catching it being a step too far to survive? Yes we , and millions more have been ‘just lucky’ by having the jabs – IMO the most stupid remark on this site for weeks. Even partly-closed world China is once again shutting down life in major cities to try to eradicate the spread. People’s private choices infecting ME is my concern, I suppose you’d rather abandon all forms of acceptable behaviour in our society? Go live in a cave, or remote woods by all means. Certain to avoid the next viral impact.
April 26, 2022
Joe public are thoroughly fed up that partygate hasnât been resolved, that the Sue Grey report hasnât been published and that turst has been erodedâŠ..its no good to say that no parliamentary rules where broken, or that theyâve paid the fineâŠ.party punishment should be big and loud, someone needs to be punished
April 26, 2022
I think Glen Joe Public as you call us are not so much fed up but waiting for the first chance to punish Bojo and his performers. I am sure we adults will retaliate for the bullying !
April 27, 2022
Bullying is too mild a description for what we were subjected to. It was coercive control, with the full panoply of threats, intimidation and punishments if you dared defy them.
Coercive control, in a domestic setting, was made illegal by the CONservative Government. It needs to be made illegal for Governments to use the same psychological techniques against their own people. It isn’t “nudging” ….
April 27, 2022
So who are you going to vote into office? There is NO ONE or ANY party worth voting for!!!!!!
April 26, 2022
The difference is Ian we didnât make those draconian rules. Many were against lockdown and the cruelty and misery it inflicted and is still inflicting but it seems those rules were only meant for the little people, or thatâs how it looks anyway. Johnson has to go. Heâs not Tory anyway and his policies are anything but Tory. Better to replace him now a couple of years in from a GE with an actual Conservative if one exists who will be more obsessed with helping us with the cost of living crisis than net zero, give us lower taxes, get out of our lives and start standing up to the bullies that are the EU over NI and our fishing waters.
April 26, 2022
Correct – I am no fan if the new post Carrie, tax to death, regulate to death. net zero, manifesto ratting fool Boris or Sunak but then look at all the leadership contenders and the dire alternative of Starmerâs Labour/SNP.
I am not concerned really about partygate. I am far more concerned about Borisâs idiotic view that ârenewablesâ will lower energy bills and the continuing vaccinating of children (and the young) with generally very ineffective Covid vaccines when this is fairly clearly doing serious net damage. This and his idiotic tax to death big government, expensive & unreliable energy economic policies.
April 26, 2022
Shadow minister Ellie Reeves (sister of fellow Labour MP, Rachel Reeves) just now saying Labour want to abolish Non Dom tax status to increase the tax take for the treasury – it would actually decrease it hugely. As wealthy people will leave or not come if they have to pay several millions in extra taxes for nothing on their overseas income.
It would be economic insanity – Osborne did huge damage already to the economy by partly wrecking the system. The reason Labour (under Blair and Brown and before them) retained it was that they and the treasury realised this full well!
April 27, 2022
Classic case of playing to the gallery LL
It’s like some lefty politician shouting
Do you want the rich to pay more tax?
Yes say the mob
So let’s increase tax rates on the rich to well over 60%
Result
Lower revenues.
April 27, 2022
LL,
We need to get off hydrocarbons so that we’re not dependent on the whims of whatever nutty dictator is in control of this fuel especially when they have deadly, hypersonic weapons (paid for by the revenue from hydrocarbons). And so we need more nuclear, renewables and whatever else science can develop so that the UK is self sufficient in terms of fuel. Whilst building up a laser defence to shoot down these deadly hypersonic missiles so that the UK is like a safe, secure fortress (including from chaotic migration). But a fortress that is open to business and to the best about the world beyond our borders.
All possible. We just have to trust more in science. Work hard at it. Be creative. And brave.
April 26, 2022
Today wind is generating 2.2gw. And we have a coal fired unit and an open cycle gas turbine running to help out.
I know it’s a very difficult concept to understand but could you try and explain to your fellow honourables how these windmills stop when there is no wind.
You will need lots of drawing paper and colored crayons but it’s worth a try.
April 26, 2022
Ian Wragg
They get turned off when the wind is too strong and they last nothing like the 25 year span the developers told us they would.
April 26, 2022
Ian. We’ll done. Your post made me laugh out loud.
April 27, 2022
+1 and also that solar power gives no energy over winter evnings & nights, little in winter days and most in summer around midday when least needed.
April 26, 2022
wish to see all rules applied and all statements to be truthful
Free speech is the bedrock of a democratic society.
No-one can be trusted to set âthe rulesâ.
The Online Harms Bill must be stopped.
Otherwise a future administration will use it to block all dissent.
There can be no compromise.
Speech is either free, or it is not.
April 27, 2022
+1
April 26, 2022
Good morning.
Cake or no cake the sad fact is that due to a government that cannot control spending and the resulting devaluation of Sterling due to QE, the value of that pound in your pocket is now worth much less that it was less than a year ago – From $1.38 to $1.29. This is important as many items, such as oil, are priced in Dollars ($) US. If the US is to combat rmpant inflation then they are going to have to ramp up both taxes and interest rates and, whilst the former may not have much effect on us, the latter certainly will. The US Government cannot cut spending as they have Democrates in power and that would mean hitting their core voters and with the Mid-terms in November (both Houses I believe) things are not looking too good.
At this rate the only cake that anyone will be able to afford will be a cupcake – real or imagined !
April 26, 2022
No one cares about cake. People do care that Johnson told Parliament over and over again that all the rules were followed. They were not and he knew that since he was at the parties, and has been fined for it. Shameful that you put the interests of the Conservative Party ahead of those of our country.
April 26, 2022
exactly it is not about cake or a humble sarnie – there were clearly numerous meetings- gatherings seems to be the best word, when it was not necessary and strictly against the very rules that No 10 insisted should be followed.
April 26, 2022
But Johnson’s rule-breaking also told the country something else, Gary. It told us that he and his acolytes didn’t really think those rules were needed to protect people against a serious health threat.
I found that information most helpful.
April 26, 2022
The public care about the effects of their woeful policies, such as their silly absolutist brexit, and their years of deregulation of the energy sector, which has left UK customers more exposed than most to spikes in global fuel prices. They’re not too pleased about the state of our rivers and coastal waters for similar reasons either.
It doesn’t matter whom they push to the front.
The whole sorry shower of them need to go.
April 26, 2022
It’s a place of work
A work meeting.
What parties?
Isn’t that what Starmer said
April 26, 2022
Peter 2
Write something relevant and with content, instead of asking silly questions
April 26, 2022
Stop trolling bill and grow up.
Never a proper response from you.
Pathetic.
April 26, 2022
GM,
Agreed. I also have a whole host of other reasons I want shot of Johnson. Introduction of Net Zero policies while abandoning Brexit being amongst them. He’s a chancer. He cannot be trusted.
April 26, 2022
Sir J,
don’t you get it..? Partygate is simply the most visible and clear manifestation of the character defects of Bunter Boris. His many levels of deception, incompetence and simple stupidity are not grounds for removal, sadly, but clear and obvious lying is.
We need a competent Brexiteer to complete the job, and manage the economy correctly; too much to ask?
April 26, 2022
Why did Patel not rat on him like she advocated the nation to do? Sunak was present why did he not rat on him and his wife, same for those present at the piss ups?
April 27, 2022
+1
April 26, 2022
Businesses were raided and closed down for trying to earn a living! People surveiled by police for walking their dogs in the country! While Johnson was pissing it up. There was a fraud on the public because Bunter thought only âthe old cutiesâ would die according to Cummings. The nation was duped by Johnson and his alleged scientists. The scientists who spoke out smeared censored and rubbished. That is peopleâs reputation JR!
April 26, 2022
…and thats the whole point, you can’t have a PM that the general public don’t trust
April 27, 2022
glen
You can extend that to the whole government. The Rwanda deal is a con. It is a back door for unlimited MASS IMMIGRATION via Rwanda into this country. I have the government MOU on my desktop.
Section 16.1 says:
The Participants will make ‘arrangements for the United Kingdom to resettle a portion of Rwandaâs most vulnerable refugees in the United Kingdom’, recognising both Participantsâ commitment towards providing better international protection for refugees.
April 27, 2022
well we did with Blair, Brown, Cameron, May ….
April 26, 2022
No, it’s not too much to ask for and I’ll support your call. It seems that Bunter was also complicit in the non-supply of weapons to Ukraine well before Russia thought of invading. So, we are now having to give Ukraine the weapons it would have paid for earlier! (Source: The Sunday Times.) He has to go!
April 26, 2022
I was never a great fan of Boris Johnson, and no fan at all after I heard him speak at a Democracy Movement public meeting in Henley, as mentioned here in May 2019:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2019/05/31/the-leadership-election/#comment-1025295
But my fear is that if he is removed his successor will not be any kind of Brexiteer.
For example, Liz Truss, of whom I wrote here last April:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/04/14/my-contribution-to-the-finance-no-2-bill-debate-13-april-2021/#comment-1222413
“Liz Truss has refused to publish any economic assessment of this fantastic trade deal which is so valuable that it is worth risking the integrity of the UK and triggering riots in Northern Ireland.”
So we can have the (narrowly on balance) Leave supporter Boris Johnson going on TV and brazenly telling us that his deal is worth about 30% of GDP, presumably on the assumption that very few people will do the sums and see that he must be lying, so he feels he can get away with it, or we can have the Remain supporter Liz Truss refusing to say what it might be worth, presumably because she knows that it is worth very little, probably somewhere between 0% of GDP and 2% of GDP.
April 26, 2022
Here here
April 26, 2022
PW,
Agreed.
April 26, 2022
Peter Wood. +1 !
April 26, 2022
My memory of that cake expression is slightly different:
âHaving our cake and eating itâ meant to convey that separating from the EU would only have upsides and no downsides.
April 26, 2022
But we were told all the downsides by Cameron and the conservative party, the opposition party, the BBC every day. On 7 Apr 2016 â David Cameron threw the full weight of the government machine behind the campaign to remain in Europe . 7 Apr 2016 â David Cameron defends a ÂŁ9m leaflet campaign promoting EU membership…the 14-page document, to be sent to 27 million homes, responds to public demand for more details about the EU referendum by setting out the facts behind the government’s position… opinion polls suggested 85% of people wanted the government to provide more information so they could make an informed decision on 23 June…The government has produced a factual leaflet.
April 26, 2022
Clearly there were always upsides and down sides as with almost every decision – just far more ups than downs. Alas the Boris government is not at all making the most of all the ups and has fully sold out on Northern Ireland!
The main upside is we restore some real democracy the EU was totally anti-democratic and very nearly did manage to kill the UKâs democracy. They would have done had we joined the Euro as John ERM Major and most other MPs idiotically wanted to.
April 26, 2022
Wow, the wanderer returns. The EU must be in dire straights to have to reopen area 9 propaganda unit.
Welcome back Peter, we’re not sorry we left, I think you should direct your energies to Poland and Hungary.
April 26, 2022
We’re doing just fine without you. Just need the NI protocol sorted and fishing rights reduced. Imports down by 25% from the EU. Trade diverted to our true friends elsewhere in the world. No more bullying undemocratic EU!!
April 26, 2022
Much like reliance on Russian gas was supposed to do Peter.
Leaving the EU however, freed us from being beholden unlike “green gas”
April 26, 2022
Yes PVL, nothing can be better than being RID of the eu and all its trash like Muckron
April 27, 2022
Hi PvL and welcome back.
Glad to see that you have made it through the SCAMdeminc despite the EU dragging its feet. Can’t be easy with all those other 26 countries wanting a say over whether or not make a vaccine.
April 26, 2022
Since the opposition did not oppose Johnson’s lockdown policies, but only wanted more of them and for longer, this is all Starmer can do now. Pick up the crumbs from a cake story.
Meanwhile Johnson’s energy policy and foreign policy are leading the country to double-digit inflation and shortages in the supermarkets. Again with Starmer’s full approval, it seems. He is the Her Majesty’s Leader of No Opposition.
April 26, 2022
Quite Right Hat Man.
Meanwhile, the still calling themselves conservative, back benchers, i.e. those M.P.s who actually COULD put our country back on the rails of sanity, take no action.
April 26, 2022
Cake is made from flour, and flour comes from wheat, of which there is an increasing shortage thanks to the Ukraine war.
Unfortunately, wheat fields in my area (Wokingham Borough) are under threat from a 4,500-house development plan.
Fortunately, the local MP regularly calls for more to be done to promote home-grown food production, so I would like to think his opposition to this scheme may be relied upon.
April 26, 2022
The UK is largely self-sufficient in production of grains, producing over 100% of domestic consumption of oats and barley and over 90% of wheat. Average yields over recent decades have been broadly stable but fluctuate from year to year as a result of better or worse weather.22 Dec 2021 gov.uk
April 26, 2022
I’m afraid we’re no longer in the world of December 2021, A-Tracy. You may also have seen that London Futures Wheat prices went up 10% just over the last month alone. It’s not a good time to be reducing domestic yields, at the same time as we’re bringing in nearly 1/3 million extra mouths to feed per year, I understand.
But there I’m talking as if we had joined-up government…
April 27, 2022
RichardII, Dec 2021 was only 4 months ago. Are you saying these crops weren’t planted in the UK that were planted every other year until January 2022? I agree it is not a good time to be reducing domestic yields – are we?
April 26, 2022
(:
April 27, 2022
Don’t forget Richard that your MP is very keen on tree planting and doesn’t mind expanding green power. He might say something against houses if there are votes in it but he is not much worried about other waste of food productive land.
April 26, 2022
As far as I can see almost all these parties were organised and attended by civil servants yet I haven’t seen any of them who received a FPN named and there have been no reports of any losing their jobs as a result. Why ?
April 26, 2022
Very good point, Roy. What does Sue Gray do? Ah yes, she’s a civil servant. Funny that…
April 26, 2022
Cake should be eaten by all.
Outside on a sunny day.
Not some folk eating cake having scared the wits out of others, who thus convinced of their imminent demise, cower indoors.
Same goes for BBQ beef burgers on beaches.
And travel.
Itâs the LIES that hurt.
April 26, 2022
Sir John, this is madness. However tempting it is to hoist our PM with his own bad law, we should not. Downing Street is a staffed 24-hour office with living accommodation, where work and relaxation mingle. Post-hoc wrangling about which meeting, piece of cake or glass of wine was acceptable refreshment in a working discussion and which might constitute a party is petty and it diverts attention from the important issues that need our PM’s attention. Our government should learn from it: don’t make bad law. We should move on.
April 26, 2022
Walt. Exactly. If we were in the middle of our own war the nit wits in Parliament would still be going on about partygate while the bombs fell around us. Crisis? What crisis? I can’t imagine politicians like Churchill putting up with so much BS. As you say, labour wanted more of everything including more money spent on the whole fiasco. Where would that have left us?
April 26, 2022
Who lives there, apart from the PM/Chancellor and a few duty-officers who wouldn’t have been partying? Had it been a naval establishment, with service personnel ‘living-in’ – like HMS ST VINCENT, of old – then there would have been a case for allowing some non-raucous socialising. But it isn’t, so there wasn’t.
I’ll offer some partial support by saying that the ‘birthday party’ looks like a minor breach compared with some other reported events.
April 26, 2022
I quite agree. I’m getting very bored with the amount of time devoted to ‘partygate’ on the airwaves when civilian men, women, children and babies are being murdered by the hundred and thousand in Ukraine.
April 26, 2022
Regarding LabourâŠcan anyone really want it?
The lefty stalwarts I know still mourn Corbyn.
The tories need to emerge as a brave, right wing party.
Fearlessly slaying the destructive NONSENSE of the vile Left.
The dreadful harm that has been done by cowardice.
April 26, 2022
In the case of No.10 social gatherings (ie the birthday cake incident) and parties for which the attendants are yet to be penalised, the point isn’t the consumption of cake or otherwise.
Parties and social gatherings, even in an essential workplace, were not permitted by the Covid laws and regulations Johnson’s Government imposed on the country and Downing St was also routinely breaking the guidance they drearily repeated ad nauseam at their ridiculous Daily Propaganda Broadcasts.
What they demonstrate is that Johnson (along with Ferguson, Handcock, Cummings, his Aides and Civil Servants, plus NutNuts) KNEW that the virus was nothing like as deadly for everyone as they continually told the public. If it was, there is no way they would have risked their lives …… and the possible wipe-out of the Government …… in order to socialise after work.
Apart from lying to Parliament, Johnson and his Government have blatantly lied to the public for 2 years ….. and destroyed millions of lives in the process. (The fact that Starmer, Drakeford and Sturgeon also broke the draconian laws they supported just reinforces the deception carried out on a, sadly, all too trusting population).
April 26, 2022
+1 Donna,
and will take generations to pay back!
There is also the little point of ÂŁ11.8 billion stolen from the Treasury in school boy error frauds that Lord Agnew resigned over. Furlough given to people without identity checks and not living in the country! No worries to Johnson and his party they increase taxes through NI by ÂŁ12 billion! Please explain if incorrect JR.
April 26, 2022
@ Donna – well said!
Framing the debate to be about possible petty, technical rule infringements misses the real point that the rule makers were themselves comfortable about ignoring the restrictions and hardships they imposed upon the rest of us (sometimes to severe suffering) because they knew the true risks did not merit those rules. For that deceit, Johnson, Whitty, Valance and others should depart public service and stay out of our lives for good.
April 26, 2022
Donna, but essential workplaces like hospitals did have staff regularly eating cake I saw on Instagram every week Pizza companies and cake companies delivering free cakes and food. The nursing staff deserved it. We were told their tik tok routines at work were to relieve stress and pressure.
Personally, I don’t think that alcohol other than in the private apartments should be in the workplace at all. I don’t understand why drinking wine or beer whilst working is condoned my workers can’t do it. I think that should be the punishment – no more alcohol in Downing Street for a period of one year. Social gathering and goodbye meetings have to take place outside of the workplace after work or at a weekend by the sounds of it this would be a severe punishment to the usual goings on at work.
Kay Burley and the other lady Beth got suspended on full pay – what sort of punishment is that, if people were suspended on full pay it wouldn’t satisfy anyone. Other people breaching covid rules didn’t lose their jobs over it.
April 26, 2022
Donna,
Agreed.
April 26, 2022
Well said. They have deceived us on an epic scale, both virus and vaccine. I cannot bear the sight of them.
April 26, 2022
Donna.
Yes, of course they knew the Covid so called pandemic, was actually just another virus.
So why has a government that we elected to ‘Get Brexit Done’, actually worked consistently over the years to destroy our country?
April 26, 2022
Johnson had been put into intensive care by it. So there was a risk to some.
April 26, 2022
Narrow S. – How strange, then, that so many officials took no notice of that risk ‘to some’. What did they perhaps know about Johnson’s Covid episode that we didn’t?
April 26, 2022
Do you really believe he was in intensive care, play acting to set the scene for the deception !
April 26, 2022
Johnson and friends have put us all in need of Intensive Care.
April 26, 2022
Meanwhile, the UK absorbed a third of a million immigrants in 2021, during a pandemic! So much for avoiding new outbreaks! Covid wasn’t scary enough for the government to reduce immigration, be it immigrants catching it and possibly requiring hospitalisation, or bringing it with them and passing it onto UK citizens, who may then require hospitalisation.
April 26, 2022
Well said, Donna. It was the sheer hypocrisy of the whole seething lot of them.
April 26, 2022
Point 1: there should have been someone sufficiently senior in No 10 to put an instant stop on any ‘parties’ – someone sufficiently alert to recognise that if knowledge of them leaked to the press, it would be disastrous.
Point 2: there is no reason to blame ‘today’s’ media – muckraking has been essential to papers and magazines for centuries, and sometimes it has uncovered serious scandals that needed to be addressed.
Point 3: Mr Johnson, in my personal experience over some years before and after becoming the London Mayor, has little or no respect for almost anyone, especially those he regards as the ‘great unwashed’, and is simply living down to my limited expectation of what his premiership would be like.
April 26, 2022
I think the sufficiently senior person in No.10 you are calling for is generally known as The Prime Minister.
Oh dear ……
April 26, 2022
“especially those he regards as the âgreat unwashedâ”
So that’s why he wants to rip out our gas boilers. He thinks we don’t need them.
April 27, 2022
1. There is.
2. Agreed.
3. Ditto !
April 26, 2022
WHY have the tories allowed all this to happen?
For Godâs sake donât hand us over to WHO.
They are already ramping up re hepatitis..
April 26, 2022
Everhopeful, they only give you the bare bones of the hepatitis story too, where are the over 100 children with it, where was patient zero how did they contract it, is it easily transferred from child to child? One report said it was in Scotland but not where.
We stopped vaccinating teenagers against tb around 2005 I always felt this was a mistake, especially with the British levels of immigration. I hope that this decision is being relooked at too.
April 26, 2022
+1
Agree 100%
April 26, 2022
Not worthy of you. Whatâs the difference between a beer and a can of coke? Hardly umpteen gatherings that Sue Gray has already indicated a total lack of leadership.
I see back in the day Johnson couldnât be bothered to pay for parking, resulting in hundreds of tickets that his then editor paid. Fast forward to wallpaper and now ignoring his own rules.
So you would be quite happy if everyone in the country adopted the same attitude, from parking anarchy to countrywide get togethers during lockdown?
I think not. So his supporters think there should be one rule of him and another for us.
I donât.
April 26, 2022
Ok Nig1 but if his previous editor was in charge why didn’t he simply pass the cost back to Boris. Was he disciplined about it at the time as was it just allowed as a perk of the job, did it become a benefit in kind and was taxed. Or was this seen as an essential risk of the parking required by an employee. If I just condoned parking tickets as the boss then why would someone stop?
Your other accusation of one rule for him and another for us is the biggest problem and he needs a serious supportive minder that knows all the rules when tested on them.
April 26, 2022
Starmer is using the cake story as a means to discredit and bring down Boris and if possible, the whole party. Never mind what indiscretion he may have done. Thatâs what the Labour Party seem to do well, hypocrisy.
When oneâs sees past footage of Labour MPs from yester-yearâŠ. thereâs a marked difference. Decent, well spoken and thoughtful. But then even Coronation Street characters spoke well in those days⊠the whole country sees to have slipped.
April 26, 2022
Boris is aiding the opposition by giving them loads of ammunition to throw at him. If he wasn’t so feckless they wouldn’t have any ammunition. Nobody to blame but Boris. He is his own (and the country’s) worst enemy.
April 27, 2022
+1
April 26, 2022
Sharm. I said as much last night watching the clowns in Parliament. All they seem to be doing is childishly arguing over stupid things. Most of us want it to end and for government to actually do something worthwhile instead of bickering and posturing while telling us things that they are going to do which actually won’t happen.
April 26, 2022
Johnson is a distraction now from important matters and should go. It could, with the right leader actually move the country forward and just maybe save the Conservative party.
April 26, 2022
Sir JR, trying to obfuscate the PM’s behaviour does you no favours. While he was or was not eating cake with his pals. The population were banned from being with their dying relatives. Banned from seeing their new-born Grandchildren. Banned from leaving their homes. Businesses were crumbling all around, livelihoods destroyed. Lives destroyed.
Perhaps you and all apologists for the PM’s actions should reflect on this.
April 26, 2022
OA, +1
April 26, 2022
Old Albion – there were other workers eating at work, congratulating fellow workers working during lockdown who had a birthday when the vast majority of the Country was being paid to stay at home.
Was Boris allowed to have all his family visit their new born baby during lockdown, did he get visits from his family when they thought he was dying? Was he visiting dying relatives.
Many people didn’t support lockdown but the vast majority did and we were outvoted. If Starmer was in charge we’d have been locked down all over Christmas 2021 and into the New Year.
April 26, 2022
OA,
Agreed.
April 26, 2022
Agree
April 26, 2022
Let’s remember, Old A., that Johnson carried on working hard even when he was going down with Covid in April 2020. Though I didn’t agree with his policies, I don’t begrudge him the occasional moment of light relief from work. Nor his staff, working under enormous pressure at a time of great crisis.
I only wish at one of these parties he’d announced to the public what he was doing, and blown the whole lockdown nonsense away in one superb blast of Johnsonian grandiloquence. It would have been the speech of his life. His handlers wouldn’t have let him do it, more’s the pity.
April 27, 2022
+1
April 26, 2022
So, when it comes to morals, it would appear there is little difference between party leaders. Why is it that most MPs continue to follow their own leaders, so easily, without due consideration of their failings?
If this was just about breaking their own rules – the rules they set for us, it would be bad enough, but parliamentary activities go much broader than celebrations.
If both party leaders can so easily dismiss concerns about their own actions, how can they be trusted with running the country without subterfuge and further dishonesty?
April 26, 2022
Bryan H.
They can’t. None of the main parties could organise a piss up in a brewery.
April 26, 2022
We’ve gone the way of the USA. The most powerful, vindictive and assertive side of politics is the so-called progressive left. They have the media, internet giants, education, civil service, NGOs and the enlightened middle classes and plenty of the wealthy all battling for them and making money from their agenda. It’s difficult to see where their fringe is, it’s all pretty extreme.
On the “right”, there’s a mainstream in control who pick up and run with some of the ideas of the progressives (e.g. net zero, gender madness, mass immigration). They too are authoritarian, entitled, like giving jobs to their mates and are out of touch with (and probably disdainful of) the great bulk of the population. However they are less of the attack dogs that the progressives are, and have been less willing to “weaponise” politics. So maybe they suffer a bit more, but it’s hard to be sympathetic when you see what they are doing with their time in power.
April 27, 2022
Blairites, one and all.
April 26, 2022
Tory MPs do ask for it, their penchant for apologising plays into the hands of the opposition, BBC and its Labour party. As soon as they wring out the apology its game over, they have advanced their political agenda. The apology is not an easy out, its a concession of political territory.
In this cake silliness , and Angel Raynor, I do wonder what we are being distracted from that should be headlines and debated, perhaps the 313,000 immigrants the Government added to our population last year , meanwhile they preach to us to live impoverished lives for their greenery, and as for a housing shortage, well adding a 1/3rd of a million people to our population is not even to be considered a part of the cause.
April 26, 2022
Iain Moore
Very well said.
When are the going to realise that the 313k immigrants come with hard fact costs. One third of them will end up driving here that’s 100k extra vehicles.
Two thirds will require housing, social services, medical services, energy, its infrastructure and on and on.
We have a government besotted with delivering Net Zero and remaining as a world leader. All the experts predict it will be the poorest that will take the biggest hit with all these grandiose plans, and we keep adding to the numbers. Complete and utter madness
April 26, 2022
Iain, Angela Raynor went home from London with Covid and straight to her bed during first lockdown.
They are just a bunch of hypocrites.
April 26, 2022
Iain Moore. +1
April 26, 2022
Iain Moore +1
April 27, 2022
BINGO !!
You do know that we have agreed to take an unlimited number of refugees from Rwanda, don’t you ?
đ
April 26, 2022
Starmerâs sanctimonious humbug is shameful. The fact that the BBC in particular letâs it go is a sign of its bias. There are plenty of reasons to wonder about whether we could do better than Boris Johnson as PM. Whether or not there was a cake at a gathering of colleagues who worked together in lockdown isnât one of them. A better question is why he was so influenced by the public health blob in the first place and didnât overrule their lockdown hysteria until recently.
Why indeed is starmers beer not being pursued with the same zeal?
April 26, 2022
Richard1 everyone seems to forget that the case against Boris’ initial resistance of lockdown was immense, the unions, the opposition, the BBC, everyone wanted him to lockdown sooner than he did, he wasn’t allowed to open up not just by the health blob. Even Cummings said he warned Boris to lockdown sooner.
People also forget all the supermarket workers, takeaways, the delivery drivers, the bakers, electricity, sewerage and gas workers etc. all had to work together with other people throughout.
April 26, 2022
Indeed
April 26, 2022
Indeed, why were those in the know seemingly unafraid of the virus?
Did the rules have a purpose other than disease control?
I hope that Elon Musk’s take over of Twitter will allow those epidemiologists who have been suppressed by the MSM and social media to openly challenge the official narrative in the digital public square.
The CCP’s lock down (crackdown) of 25 million people in Shanghai takes some explaining as it will likely be responsible for more damage to health than Omicron ever was.
As for the BBC, it has been colonised by people with a political agenda, so best avoided.
April 26, 2022
Years ago how growing “the economic cake” was down to the Conservatives backing the Private Sector entrepreneurs while the Labour party laboured over how it was shared knowing little about growing it.
Now who do we expect to grow it? Neither presently…..
April 26, 2022
Only in the UK would this story get the sort of traction of air time, parliamentary time, and front pages it has been given.
We all know there was not a real party at all.
Did anyone break any of the rules at the time, probably, but then if you wanted businesses and government to continue, and not shut down completely, then that was going to be inevitable, as zoom meetings and remote working will not cover everything.
The huge error was not owning up to the situation at the time, and making a full explanation.
The second error was to allow alcohol to be consumed in a work place.
Would it have been called a party if they all drank tea or coffee at the time !
Would I have preferred the Office at 10 Downing Street to have been abandoned by its staff for weeks on end during a pandemic/crisis, absolutely not. !
April 27, 2022
‘Would I have preferred the Office at 10 Downing Street to have been abandoned by its staff for weeks on end during a pandemic/crisis, absolutely not. !’
Well to millions of us it DID feel like they abandoned normal business of No 10.
April 26, 2022
You will probably receive plenty of replies outraged about the hypocrisy of a PM breaking his own stupid laws and then some saying how weary they are of “Partygate” and cake. Your immoral and incapable party leader will never resign so his fate lies in the hands of you and your Tory MP colleagues. Speaking as an outsider who, based on almost every serious policy matter, would love to see Johnson gone, I would urge you to counsel your colleagues about the risks they may be taking. What I mean is, Johnson is unfit to be PM but so is almost every other potential contender in your party and if it’s Hunt or Gove, masks will be compulsory forever and we will be in lockdown again by October. I would actually rather you hang on to the useless hypocrite you voted to lead your party
April 26, 2022
I agree – its disappointing to read Mr Redwood’s comments on this matter today, I thought he was wisely steering clear of it. There remains strong anger at Mr Johnson about this, as you rightly imply.
April 26, 2022
The main concern over partygate is being missed by many – GBC (Government by Carrie). This was purely a work meeting, yet there she was! Un-elected, un-electable yet meddling in Government business. Boris is under the thumb even at home!
April 26, 2022
If only our politicians were up to running the country rather than playing games
April 27, 2022
Very much agreed.
April 26, 2022
The Government are delighted weâre all discussing cake and now legs.
It means weâre not discussing whether lockdowns were necessary, how their CCA/Net Zero policy is causing rocketing electricity prices and the continuing very high levels of immigration.
The Opposition, the Civil Service and the BBC all agree with all these Government policies and donât want to alert the public to these issues either which leaves them cake and legs as the only tool they have to remove the PM and bring down the Government.
So cake and legs it is until another trivial but suitable event occurs.
April 27, 2022
Exactly. No discussion on inflation, government debt, mass immigration, infringments on civil liberties etc. Just nonsense and trivia.
April 26, 2022
People who broke lockdown rules should not be defended. As a criterion for determining whether ministers should remain in office and governments in power, it seems hopeless to me and we would be foolish to use such a method.
April 26, 2022
In future times people will look at videos (?) of the PM and his selected health advisors solemnly urging the population to be frightened for their lives while silencing any dissenting medical science, and be amazed at how everyone blindly accepted it. The fact that Downing Street staff knew it was BS and held gatherings just shows it all for what it was.
April 26, 2022
This whole ‘partygate’ saga, fiasco, charade, call it what you will, is no more than an attempt by the remainers and the Labour Party ably supported by the BBC to remove Boris out of the way so that they can kill Brexit. In addition we now have a Civil Service openly displaying their political leaning to the left and doing everything they can to delay and interrupt the introduction of Brexit benefits. DFRA is a prime example with its re-wilding scheme to reduce our food producing acreage and allowing our fishing grounds still to be wrecked by these over-sized trawlers. The Treasury is another, with their appalling forecasts.
Starmer was on the BBC’s ‘Sunday morning’ show and to say he was pathetic is an understatement. He has a brilliant mind and has had a very successful career as a lawyer but he illustrates very clearly why we should never have one in the top job. They are reactionary and in no way pro-active. He failed to make a single suggestion as to how we might curtail inflation or protect our energy supplies.
Boris has foresight and thinks ‘outside the box’ and we need that now if we are to progress out of the appalling situation of war in Ukraine, energy insecurity and inflation. There is no one else about who has the slightest ability to tackle these problems
April 26, 2022
Who FORCED Johnson to imprison us and destroy our economy?
April 26, 2022
Sir John,
Perhaps the quotation should fully read as:
“Having your cake, then eating it, but still wanting to have your cake “.
This, I think, conveys more accurately the wishful thinking of many who want to consume what they’ve got and yet expect that after they have consumed it, it has miraculously not gone and is still there to be had again.
April 26, 2022
Anyone reading your piece could be forgiven for forgetting that the covid restrictions were the greatest infringement of liberties and assumption of dictatorial powers this country has experienced (per Lord Sumption).
Irrespective of this, surely it is axiomatic that a leader adheres to higher standards than he expects from those to whom he lays down the law.
Ignorance of the law, of course, is no defence, and this must be true many times over if the person involved is the person making that law.
Iâm sure many managers of businesses and other organisations have been fined and even sacked for minor and accidental breaking of the rules, often in circumstances where it was not really their fault.
People followed the rules, often at great inconvenience and suffering to themselves, and we all know that many were prevented from seeing their dying loved ones. I donât believe it appropriate to try to extract humour from the situation.
None of this detracts from my admiration of Borisâs many qualities
April 27, 2022
‘Borisâs many qualities’ …..perhaps you would list a few for us? I’m sure I’m not alone in wondering what they are.
April 27, 2022
Good point: maybe I exaggerate.
April 28, 2022
You got distracted by all this talk of crossing legs – you are forgiven.
April 26, 2022
Indeed. The double standards at play here are depressing and irritating.
Sturgeon and Drakeford do worse and their politicised police forces choose to do nothing, while Starmer escapes any investigation.
This country is going to the dogs. How do we pull it back from the brink?
April 26, 2022
Impossible, particularly with Boris and as most Tories put the party before country and people like you. Anyone who feels young enough should emigrate as quickly as possible. My children have gone and are doing well.
April 26, 2022
It wasnât Borisâ breaking of the stupid, tyrannical and unworkable rules which was his crime. It was his imposing of them in the first place.
April 26, 2022
Correct.
April 27, 2022
+1
April 26, 2022
Off topic, it seems that some journalists are struggling to accept that if Brexit has affected trade between the UK and the EU it is actually the latter which has suffered more:
https://tinyurl.com/mr2aptfp
“Imports to EU” is a very strange way to describe imports from the EU into the UK.
As made clearer by this:
https://news.sky.com/story/brexit-eu-firms-lost-greater-volume-of-trade-than-uk-exporters-report-finds-12598862
“Brexit: EU firms ‘lost greater volume of trade than UK exporters’, report finds”
However any changes should not be attributed just to Brexit when the pandemic was so disruptive; it will take some years before a reliable picture emerges and even then it will be essential to remember that any impact on our trade with the EU will be diluted about eightfold in its impact on the whole UK economy.
April 26, 2022
Off topic, an Irish nationalist ends his letter printed in today’s Irish News with these words:
“Ironically and thankfully, the British have now returned Irelandâs natural enforceable permanent border to its proper place â the Irish Sea.”
This is why Sinn Fein and Alliance and the SDLP and the Greens all support the NI protocol.
April 26, 2022
Sir John.
I am getting a bit fed up with you lately.
You so often seem to be trying to defend your leader’s insane policies.
Your Party is no longer conservative. The others are even worse.
The Local Elections will hopefully be a wake up call.
May be you and a few other M.P.’s will actually take some action to get rid of your useless leader and get this country back on the rails of sanity and common sense.
April 26, 2022
Boris Johnson is a great admirer of Winston Churchill, apparently, a man who said, “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” Is Boris trying to drag us into a war with Russia by lying and provocation? Does he imagine that he will get the US/NATO formally involved as we are now involved with both munitions and military personnel without the absolution of the over-remunerated lobby fodder? We have no vital interests in Ukraine; what is the man playing at?
April 26, 2022
“Let them eat cake” was a disdainful remark attributed to Marie Antoinette and directed at her subjects. That it has parallels from our government in their disdain for the UK electorate are not hard to find. For the guillotine read election 2024 and hope there is a viable alternative to the left of centre cabal we suffer.
April 26, 2022
BBC news website.
Russian energy firm Gazprom has told Poland and Bulgaria it will stop sending gas to the two countries from Wednesday. Polish state gas company PGNiG said it had been told all gas deliveries would be halted from 08:00 CET (06:00 GMT). The Bulgarian Energy Ministry also said it had been informed deliveries would be suspended from Wednesday.
It comes after Russia said “unfriendly” countries must start paying for gas in roubles or it would cut supplies.
Poland has repeatedly refused to pay in this way.
PGNiG relies on Gazprom for the majority of its gas imports and bought 53% of its imports from the Russian company in the first quarter of this year. It described the suspension as a breach of contract, adding that the company would take steps to reinstate the flow of gas.
Bulgaria’s energy ministry said it had taken steps to find alternative supplies but no restrictions on gas consumption were currently required. The country relies on Gazprom for more than 90% of its gas supply.
April 27, 2022
Even if there was a lockdown elsewhere, those in essential jobs had to carry on working. Important in a workplace is maintaining morale. That undoubtedly includes modest socialising such as drinks and events for leavers and even a birthday cake for the boss. That is all part of office work and where work is essential, so too is that very reasonable (even if arguably not essential) irrespective of Covid. An office is just not the same as a hospital where people are ill and very vulnerable to infections.
Even if I were wrong and to the detriment of effective office work mild office socialising were an offence, it would be a summary offence in law and thus not actionable after six months.
Yet even if both these points were wrong, the police are not and could not handle it in the way they were then instructed to handle it for everyone else and have done for Nicola Sturgeon last week which is advise her on the law. There were instructions to the Police then that they were to encourage and advise before and mainly instead of issuing penalty notices. That would have been more appropriate in the case of an office birthday party or an office event if indeed (which I doubt) those were illegal.
So Jacob Rees-Mogg is on the right track. Boris Johnson is being hounded as he is not a conventional establishment politician and is very .unpopular in establishment circles
April 27, 2022
It always seemed to me that the least guilt to be attached to the PM would be over the birthday cake event.
How could he have been guilty of anything when others surprised him with a birthday cake in his place of work. That is, in the Cabinet Room that successive PMs have used as their personal office !
He may or may not be guilty over other events but on the incident involving the cake, no fair minded jury or magistrate would have convicted him. Accepting the fine in those circumstances was a mistake.
April 27, 2022
could fine acceptance indictate guilt witnessed by others?
April 27, 2022
I suspect acceptance and payment of a fine was a pragmatic political decision to close the issue soon politically rather than let the issue drag on for years in the courts which would keep the issue alive politically. I doubt that it was intended to be an acceptance that he was legally wrong. I would have contested it legally but I am not Prime Minister and probably Boris Johnson made the right political decision not to contest it.
April 28, 2022
Sir John could ask in the ‘House’ ‘Prime Minister did you accept the fine to close the issue, or are you accepting that you were legally wrong?
April 27, 2022
Itâs good to see Conservative MPs finally questioning what Starmer got up to in Durham, whichever way you look at it drinking beer and eating pizza with several people not in his work bubble 200 miles from home when no more than 2 people were supposed to gather indoors and at 10.22pm is a lot more like a party than being in the office with a cake for 9 minutes at lunch time.