Starmer continuing his good form at #PMQs. Cites resignations of Allegra Stratton, Neil Ferguson, Matt Hancock. ‘Why does the prime minister think everyone else’s actions have consequences except his own?’
Johnson’s responses are dismal even by his standards. Refuses to answer question or even confirm he accepts he broke the law. Basically tells Starmer he should be asking him about any subject that isn’t uncomfortable for him.
Johnson calls Starmer a ‘Corbynista in an Islington suit’, which is literally risible to anyone with a brain on either the left or right - and, once again, the person who lived in Islington was, in fact, Johnson
18 hours after complaining about ‘personal abuse’, Johnson says Starmer must be ‘out of his tiny mind’
Johnson is having one of the worst PMQs of his career. Like frogs obliviously boiling in a pot, a few Tory backbenchers yell ‘more’
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One thing transcending so many takes across the political spectrum is our total self-obsession. It has to be about NATO, or decaying Western values, even Brexit. What if something, just for once, wasn’t really about us at all?
The extraordinary thing is that Putin has literally told us why he’s doing this. He told us, to our faces, his history lesson about Lenin, his smears about Ukrainian Nazis, his fantasy about Russians and Ukrainians being the same. If he’s not pretending, why are so many of us?
You expect the ‘decadent West’ bullshit from the rabid right, desperate to make Ukraine the latest front in their culture war. Far more disappointing is a certain wing of the anti-imperialist left.
The line that this was provoked by EU and NATO ‘expansion’ fails on all terms, including its own. 🧵
First, the very concept of expansion frames it as coercive political or military conquest, rather than the decisions of elected governments in sovereign states. Those countries had every right to pursue the futures they aspired to.
It also suggests that Russia had the right not simply to oppose its former possessions and satellite states’ economic and defensive interests, but the right to stop them altogether: a nakedly imperialist stance.
Yikes. Starmer starts with guns blazing. Tories are ‘parroting the conspiracy theories of violent fascists to score cheap political points. He knows exactly what he’s doing.’ #PMQs
Incredibly - and yet not incredibly at all - Johnson doubles down on the smear, and uses legalese to justify it.
There’s no more mileage in partygate for now, so Starmer and Johnson are having what almost passes for traditional knockabout over tax and spend
Jesus, looks as though Johnson’s had a haircut. He didn’t even do that to announce the death of Prince Philip
He’s rushing through this speech and the perfunctory ‘sorrys’. For someone renowned for being such an actor he’s already giving a shit performance
Clearly the intention is to sound as though he’s on top of this and has the authority to drive through it by sheer force of personality - but the upshot is he isn’t showing any contrition in tone or body language whatsoever
OK. It looks better than I expected. Gray says all but four of the gatherings are being investigated by police and she won’t comment on the others while that’s happening. That will make it extremely difficult for the Tories to draw a line under it. This is just getting started.
Some lines I think are genuinely damning. ‘At least some of the gatherings represent a serious failure to observe not just the high standards expected of those working at the heart of Government but also of the standards expected of the entire British population at the time.’
And, undoubtedly, implicit criticism of PM. ‘It seems there was too little thought given to what was happening across the country in considering the appropriateness of some of these gatherings, the risks they presented to public health and how they might appear to the public.’