Friday, 21st January, 2022 [Day 676]

Today dawned as a somewhat raw and cold day so Meg and I did not exactly leap out of bed with alacrity. Our domestic help arrived getting on for half an hour late because there had been an accident somewhere in the Bromsgrove road system and when this occurs during the rush hour, it does not take too much for the whole town to get absolutely gridlocked. As a matter of planning, if Bromsgrove were to build the number of houses in the places that they intend to build them without improving the road system (which is the responsibility of the County Council, not the District Council) then it is quite possible that the town will soon be gridlocked with normal rather than abnormal traffic. In recent planning applications, the District Council is arguing that it is assumed that many people will walk or cycle whereas it is much likely than Mum, Dad and 2-3 children become eventually a four car household. Of course, these assumptions are built on ‘pre-pandemic’ work and travel patterns but it is possible that, as the government hope, we will quickly revert to these patterns but I doubt it somehow. Being a bit delayed this morning, we popped down into town by car and then made a visit to the park hoping to see our University of Birmingham friend. In the event, we met no-one we knew in the park which is hardly surprising as the weather was cold and miserable (as were we) and the park was pretty deserted today. So we came home and had lunch of pollock as I have just bought a 1kg pack of Alaskan pollock from Waitrose. I had purchased some parsley sauce in a packet but I think I will look out for some garlic and chilli sauce  which I suspect I may be able to buy in a bottle (or at least something similar) Pollock as a fish is like a poor man’s cod and has the reputation of lacking in flavour but I am sure that nowadays it is possible to add some flavour whilst also preserving the health benefits of 1-2 potions of fish per week, which is our aim. Next week, though, we may well revert to our treat of seabass which is always available as a fresh fish in Waitrose. Last time I was in the supermarket, I treated myself to some of theose ‘instant’ packets of porridge oats which you can prepare with a 1-2 minute ‘zing’ in the mircowave in the days when I tend to leave the house early and need something hot inside me.

A former Cabinet Minister, Rory Stewart, is tonight reported as saying that ‘Boris Johnson is a terrible prime minister and worse human being‘ which is quite a quote when you come to think of it. He goes in, in an article published in the Financial Times to accuse Johnson of ‘mendacity, indifference to detail, poor administration and inveterate betrayal of every personal commitment‘ and argues that as a majority of Conservative MPs and party members had voted for him  that he, Boris Johnson, was not an aberration but a product of a system that will continue to produce terrible politicians long after Boris Johnson is gone. This is quite an interesting line of argument in that Rory Stewart is condemning not just an individual politician but a political scene in which the lies and evasions of our current Prime Minister will be overlooked so long as he manages to deliver winning seats for the Conservative party but whose MPs are likely to dispose of him if Boris Johnson is seen as a liability. We have seen the same mindset with the supporters of Donald Trump in which his manifest failings are overlooked so long as he delivers a victory to the Republican Party. If you follow the logic of this analysis through, it is extremely depressing to come to the realisation that in our modern democracy, incompetence and malevolence are set at nought provided that electoral victory always ensues. By this token, there are no moral values or standards of probity any more at the highest level of our political life – one can only wonder what the private thoughts of The Queen, Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown (and Margaret Thatcher were she still to be alive) might be on this state of affairs. There are persistent rumours a few days in advance of the Sue Gray report into ‘partygate’ that ‘smoking’ emails have been discovered which show that the Prime Minister, or his immediate aides, had been informed of the probable illegality of the planned parties but they were ignored. My best guess is that Boris Johnson will try to ride out what the Sue Gray report says or does not say about him but that the letters will go in to the 1922 committee and Boris Johnson will have a real fight for his political life (which he may well win but only in the short term) towards the end of next week.

 

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Thursday, 20th January, 2022 [Day 675]

Today is my ‘shopping’ day but I get up bright and early so that I can get to Waitrose in Droitwich before the store opens. This morning, as it had been so frosty overnight, the car required its typical watering can of warm water over it to defrost the windows. Anticipating that there may be delays in getting to the supermarket, I set off in plenty of time but, as it turned out, there were no holdups on the road so I finished up waiting for ten minutes outside the store waiting for it to open. I then had a fairly diligent shop before I returned home before having breakfast and putting the shopping away. When Meg and I started on our walk down into town, the sky was very clear but the air temperature was pretty cold. In the last few days, I had seen a special offer over the internet of ladiies fur-lined boots which I was tempted by and actually did purchase. They duly arrived this morning, a day or so before they were promised so Meg trotted down to town freshly shod as it were. On our way down into town, a near neighbour called us into the house to impart some neighbourhood news to us and whilst chatting, we were introduced to both her dog and her cat to whom she is evidently devoted. We spent several minutes chatting whilst she told us her news to us and we sympathasised with her about her husband (who we know quite well by sight) who had had endured a life threatening illness some three and half years ago and from which he is making a slow recoveryy. Once we collected our newspaper and got as far as the park, we savoured our coffee but suddenly a fairly icy blast seem to spring out of nowhere so we decided not to linger. As we were departing, we bumped into another couple of regular park walkers whose names we had been told but which we have forgotten. Pleasant though the little chat was, we were pleased to get walking again to keep us warmed up and truly ready for our lunch. Now that the month of January is more than half over, we are starting to discern how the days are lengthening about  a minute or so a day and this is always heartening and we know that whilst some bouts of bad weather may still lie in front of is, at least the prospect of a beckoning spring is not too far off.

After dinner, we carried on with completing some clerical tasks that have been hanging over us for a while now.  When I settled down to have a read of The Times today, I was amazed to see that the front page of ‘times2‘ was devoted to an examination of the ‘Led by Donkeys‘ spoof video in which Boris Johnson is ‘interviewed’ by members of AC-12 as in the fictional series Line of Duty. (‘Times2’ is the supplement to the The Times which contains some extended articles and media news, including TV and radio schedules) It is a tribute to the professionalism with which the video has been made that it has ‘gone viral’ and seen by 6 million views (twice as many as PMQ held just over a week ago now). The video is very clever in that Boris Johnson’s actual responses to various questions put to him are used and some of the original lines from Line of Duty. But it does appear that some of the original cast members have actually recorded some of the more specific questions and these are ‘stitched into’ the whole of the video. Sometimes, these videos can have enormous impact. I seem to remember that shortly after Spitting Image portayed Margaret Thatchr as completely mad with rolling eyes and wild gesticulations that members of the Tory party started to convince themselves that they could never win another election under Thatcher and that led to her downfall.

There is bit of interesting political news that has hit the airwaves today. This is the claim by a Tory MP, William Wragg, chair of the public administration and constitutional affairs committee, who said that a number of MPs have faced intimidation in recent days after declaring, or assumed to have declared, their desire for a vote of confidence in Mr Johnson. This claim is also backed up by Christian Wakeford, the MP who defected from the Tories to Labour yesterday. He has claimed that the whips had indicated to him (over a previous threatened rebellion) that his constituency would lose the fundings for a new school in his constituency. Of course, all whips exert a variety of pressures from the personal to the political but this story that a constituency itself might be deprived of government largesse probably goes across the line of what may be considered legitimate pressure by the whips.

 

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Wednesday, 19th January, 2022 [Day 674]

Today seemed quite a gloomy day and because of the political news likely to emerge during the day, we decided to re-orient our routine somewhat. In particular, as today is a Wednesday there will be a session of PMQ (Prime Minister’s Questions) at 12.00pm. So I decided to walk down to the paper shop on my own (which I did). When I was on the point of setting off, a shower was passing overhead which necessitated the use of a waterproof. Having collected my newspaper and some comestibles from Waitrose, the sky cleared somewhat and it was quite a fine day. I got back and consumed my elevenses in plenty of time to observe PMQ which always starts promptly at 12 noon. I think today’s PMQ was very much anticipated because Sky‘s Beth Rigby performed a complete evisceration of Boris Johnson yesterday and many commentators observed that Boris Johnson in his body language looked a completely broken figure. Just before noon, though, there was news of a direct defection from Conservative to Labour, by the MP Christian Wakeford, the MP for Bury South. If my researches are correct, the last time there was a direct defection from Tory to Labour was in 2007 which is 14-15 years ago. This was announced just before PMQ and the MP was in his place on the Labour benches. Keir Starmer put in an impressive performance, poking fun at the Prime Minister’s constant change of story regarding the ‘parties’ in Downing Street and in particular the latest excuse which was ‘nobody told me this was against the rules’ Boris Johnson, though, seemed to have regained some of his usual composure and blustering style since yesterday and put in a typical bravura performance in which none of the questions asked was even remotely answered and the focus of the reply was to praise the Conservative party’s record in rolling out the vaccines and to denigrate any of the positions taken by the Labour Party. This more typical performance by Boris Johnson might buy him a few days respite until, of course, the Gray report is published, perhaps at the end of next week. Right at end of the PMQ, though, David Davis (an ex -Brexit minister) invoked a past parliamentary attack on Neville Chamberlain with the imprecationYou have sat there too long for all the good you’ve done. In the name of God, go.’ However, the first person to have uttered these words was Oliver Cromwell addressing the Long Parliament in 1653 and the exact words used were ‘You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God go.” I think it is too early to assess the impact of David Davis’s call for a resignation but Boris Johnson’s reaction was to reply that he did not understand what David Davis was saying. Earlier in the day (well, in the middle of last night, actually) I saw a most incredible ‘spoof’ video in which Boris Johnson was interviewed by the Line of Duty (television series) team. This has apparently ‘gone viral’ as they say and Boris Johnson’s own words were interpolated with questions from the Line of Duty officers. Some wags have pointed out that whilst the Met have not and will not interview Boris Johnson, at least he has been interviewed by some police officers (albeit fictional ones) 

The other political news today is the announcement of the end of Plan B restrictions by Sajid Javid. Whilst it is true to say that the Omicron variant of the pandemic seems to be past its peak, I suspect there is a danger that we are relaxing too soon. There is always the impression that this announcement (on the end of Plan B) has been advanced by several days to help Boris Johnson out of his current difficulties. When a Prime Minister has his back against the wall, there is no lengths to which he/she will go, even though the the country as a whole may the loser. If a successor to Omicron rears its ugly head, without more vaccines and lockdowns, what strategies are we going to deply as a country to cope with a newly emerging threat?

The latest episode in the saga of the attempt to satisfy the safeguarding procedures of the bank which looks after our residents’ association bak account continues apace. Today, I managed to wait for only about three minutes (the maximum has been 50) and sailed through the security procedures – at which I have been denied access before. Then I was asked some bizarre questions such as had I or any members of my fanily been part of a UK diplomatic mission. When asked for proof of my address, I pointed out that I had previously shown ny driving licence in branch, which satisfied them. Then they gave me a code to update the safeguarding form – but it didn’t work. The voice at the other end said they would process the form for me – all I have to do is to wait for email – in 5-10 working days! We shall see…

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Tuesday, 18th January, 2022 [Day 673]

As the day dawned,  it was evidently going to be quite a raw day – and so it proved. The clear skies that we have seen in the last few days had been replaced by a sort of low-hanging cloud and it was evident that although we were not going to have any rain or snow, it was going to be a misty/foggy type of day. As we looked out of our bedroom window this morning, there was not much of evidence of a ground frost but there was a low hanging, icy looking mist rolling across the adjacent fields envelopimg the sheep in its midst.  We decided to go down into town by car today as time is always of the essence on a ‘Pilates’ day. We did collect our newspaper and than made off for the park where we retreated to our normal bench, thinking to ourselves that we would just have our coffee and then make for home. We did encounter one or two of the regulars, some of whom we know by sight rather than by name and then we were glad to beat a retreat back into the car and thence homewards. Once we got home, we turned on the TV to see if there was any more breaking political news (about which more later) and then I started to get my gear together in time for my Pilates session. Down the road, we have recently made friends with a French lady, recently widowed and she invited us round to her place the other day for some afternoon tea. As we know she is on her own a fair bit and also particularly dislikes the  cold, dark days of winter we thought that we would invite her round to share some fresh seabass with us (bought the day before in Waitrose). So on my way down into town, I popped a note through the door of our French friend inviting her round to have a simple meal with us. Half way through the afternoon, I got a telephone call from our friend who cannot make it to dine with us this Friday but in ten days time, a week on Friday, that would be fine. So now we have a little ‘dinner date’ to which we can look forward and, of course, the preparation is minimal. The fish as I well know by know only takes five minutes to cook (three minutes on the skin side, two minutes on the flesh side) so we can wait until our guest arrives and then cook dinner on the spot.

There are four little twists to the Boris story, each small in itself but taken collectively, perhaps they are quite significant. The first of these is the utterance from the man himself who has complained that ‘nobody came and told him that having a party/after work drinks’ was against the rules. This is one of the most pathetic of excuses possible and Beth Rigby of ITN tackled him fair and square telling him that as the PM in charge of the government who framed the rules, he hardly needed to be explicitly told what the rules were. The second bit of news is probably the most damning of all. News has leaked out that Dominic Cummings is to be interviewed as part of the Sue Gray report and this mens we shall probably have a direct conflict of evidence as to who is telling the truth. Either Dominic Cummings or Boris Johnson has to be lying – and Cummings has indicated that he shall swear any oath necessary that his account is true. The third snippet is a little clip I heard from a barrister, well used to hearing accounts in court where witnesses knew that they could not commit perjury but wanted to tell less than the whole truth. This can help to explain why the Boris Johnson defence that ‘nobody told him of the illegality’ has a slight chance of being true (why tell somebody what is obvious to nearly the whole population?) whilst being completely not credible. The fourth snippet is much more impressionistic but may well turn out to be prescient. This is the observation from Beth Rigby and some MPs that after Tuesday’s broadcast interview the moment the prime minister admitted – in his body language and demeanour rather than his words – that the game could be up. Appearing for the first time in public after nearly a week, to face further accusations over Downing Street parties and exactly what he knew about when, he looked defeated. The betting at the moment is between those who believe that the Gray report will have sufficient in it for Boris Johnson to realise that the game is up even if no direct blame is attached to him. The other school of thought is that he may be able to cling on until the May elections and that will be the final death knell for him.

 

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Monday, 17th January, 2022 [Day 672]

The high pressure over most of the country remains today and we looked forward to our daily trip. In fact, a wonderful golden light seemed to suffuse the morning air and whether or not it was a trick of the atmosphere I know not, but it felt a beautiful day for our walk.As it happened, we were a little late setting off this morning so we decided to make a trip by car which actually turned out for the best. On our way out, we bumped into our neighbour and we exchanged notes about the bungalow facing us across our green communal area (which I call ‘Meg’s Meadow’) and which is now on the market via the Purple Bricks agency. We discussed what we thought may well be an inflated price but the housing market is all a little cray at the moment so we shall have to wait and see.  Then we popped down to Waitrose where we needed to buy quite a number of items and bumped into one of our favourite staff members who gave us some good news. She informed us that the coffee bar area in the store, long since unused because of the COVID restrictions, was scheduled to reopen at a date probably in February. It appears that a policy decision may be taken at higher echelons within Waitrose that whilst some coffee lounges would close ours would be reprieved. Needless to say, we earnestly hope that this is the state of play and if so we will patronise it regularly and encourage many of our entourage to use it as well on the basis of ‘Use it or lose it’ When we eventually got to the park, later than we would have liked, we encountered many of our regulars. One is the Intrepid Octogenerian Hiker who was busy doing his series of laps so that he can complete the 8-9km a day which is a part of his daily routine. He told us that his daughter-in-law organises these ‘walks’ for him and, following the app, you pretend that you are actually walking in China, the Andes or where-have-you. Once you have walked an actual 60-80 kilometres, the app which has measured you awards you with a medal! Our friend now had a display cabinet full of these medals. I joked with him that when he dies, if they hung all of his medals around the outside of his coffin they would clink together as they carried his coffin down the aisle! (In case this sounds like incredibly poor taste, he agreed wholeheartedly). Then we met with Seasoned World Traveller who we had seen yesterday but he nonetheless trundled along today. We agreed to differ on whether the Brexit referendum was a ‘fair’ result but we have disagreed ever since we first met so it is unlikely that eiher of us will convince the other now – but we don’t fall out about it. Finally, we met with another couple that we know well by sight but whose names we have not yet ascertained and we chatted for a bit before the cold crept into our bones and we made for home. I haven’t mentioned our friendly cat, Miggles, who has adopted us but as soon as we got home, he/she recognised us when we got out of the car and came running towards us. Knowing the intelligence of the moggy, I let her follow me to the (locked) back door gate and indicate that some treats will be available in a moment. As soon as I have got into the house and prepared the ration of treats (courtesy of Waitrose) Miggles has negotiated the tall back gate (at least six feet high) and I can guarantee will appear, face appearing in the cat-flap portal installed by the previous owners, waiting for the treats. 

There is some interesting political news this evening. In his latest blog post, Dominic Cummings accused Mr Johnson of lying to parliament about parties in Downing Street.  Referring to the “bring your own booze” party organised by principal private secretary Martin Reynolds on 20 May 2020, Mr Cummings said the prime minister had agreed the party should go ahead.  At least two other people had said the party should not happen, the former aide said.  Mr Cummings said he would ‘swear under oath’this is what happened (all of this courtesy of Sky News) Incidentally, as a sign of how emasculated the BBC has become on a day when the Culture secretary accused the BBC of a systematic left-wing bias, it is interesting to nore that this Dominic Cummings was the lead story on Sky News but on the BBC website, there is not even a mention. Cummings goes on to say that “Amid discussion over the future of the cabinet secretary and PPS himself, which had been going on for days, I said to the PM something like: ‘Martin’s invited the building to a drinks party, this is what I’m talking about, you’ve got to get a grip of this madhouse …The PM waved it aside.” If Boris Johnson can be shown to have lied to the House of Commons, this is instant curtains!

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Sunday, 16th January, 2022 [Day 671]

Today being Sunday is a morning of early rising so that I can go down and collect my newspaper before breakfast. It was an overcast morning but not particularly cold and as is usual at this time on a Sunday morning, I was passed by the occasional jogger but that was all. After breakfast, we watched the successor to the Andrew Marr (politics) show, imaginatively called the ‘Sunday Morning‘ programme with a new presenter in Sophie Raworth. The BBC say they have plans to relaunch the programme with a new title, a new look and a permanent presenter but Sophie Raworth did a good job in some penetrating interviewing of Keir Starmer. It seems an irony that the next week or so may be some of the more dramatic weeks in British politics with the ‘partygate’ scandal running continuously but the BBC are working with a ‘temporary’ programme format each Sunday morning. After breakfast, we slowly got our act together before making a lesiurely trip down to the park.There we met with two of our Sunday morning regulars – our University of Birmingham friend and Seasoned World Traveller with whom we chatted yesterday. Today, I took along with me a couple of tubes of Ibuprofen gel which had prescribed for me by the doctor when I was suffering from an affliction called ‘trigger finger’ (now righted itself without much intervention). As my medication prders repeat themselves, the Ibuprofen supplies seem to keep expanding so I thought I would give a couple of tubes away to friends and associates ( both appreciated by the way) Just after midday, Meg and I went along to have a coffee with our Irish friends down the Kidderminster Road. The coffee transmogrified itself a beer and as it was cold outside, our friends had kindly made some soup and sandwiches for us so we finsihed off having an instant (and very welcome) lunch. We always have the most wonderful of chats and, as usual, we always seem to have masses to talk about, not least the national political scene  now that Boris Johnson’s Operation Save Big Dog is swinging into action. I think this weekend may prove to be quite significant, even though no announcements or political action takes place on a Sunday, as the weekends are times for MPs to have conversations with families and supporters in their constituencies and therefore get an intimation of what the current electorate are thinking of the goings-on on Downing Street.  When MPs return to Westminster on Monday mornings, some of these soundings can be compared with the perceptions of their fellow MPs once they return to the metropolis. Of course, everyone is waiting for the Sue Gray report into the partying at Downing Street but I have a feeling that the whole may yet prove to be a damp squib. After all, on a factual basis, the journalists have done a pretty good job in ferreting out that which needs to be known.

There are various items in the news today – and they all share common features. The principal item is, of course, the personality of Boris Johnson, because it is evident to many (not least, his house master at Eton) that Boris Johnson refuses to be bound by the rules that affect the rest of us. The second item is Prince Harry who is asking for a level of police protection when he comes to visit the UK. This request reveals a mindset in which Harry wishes to be a member of the royal family when it suits him but not a member when it suits him. The third example is Novak Djokovic whose appeal against deportation from Australia was lost. It appears from various press accounts that Djovic is a vaccine denier – when attempting to enter Australia legally for the first time, he made a false statement on the immigration form so do the normal rules apply to him? The Spanish authorities are also pursuing Djovic for the same reason in that he may have not been entirely honest when it came to declaring his vaccination status. To my mind, each of these examples (and I haven’t bothered to mention Prince Andrew yet) all share one common feature which is this. They relish their ‘elite’ status and then to argue that the rules that bind the majority of the population do not apply to them. Hence they are prepared to ‘bend’ the truth, make false or misleading statements or otherwise argue that they are a ‘special case’.  I think it is this aspect of ‘partygate’ as it is beginning to be called as members of the public are rightly incensed when they had to endure the emotional agonies of seeing relatives and loved ones die without being at their side whilst partying was going on in Downing Street. The press have seized on ‘partying’ but in most cases, the transgressions occurred in what, is effect, an ‘after-work drink’ but the wider point is still valid in that most of the population observed the rules whilst the Downing Street personnel did not.

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Saturday, 15th January, 2022 [Day 670]

Another day dawned under our current wave of high pressure where the skies are generally clear and the nights cold. This morning, we had evidently had a frost overnight but not an incredibly heavy one and we prepared slowly for our walk down into town. We walked down as far as the newspaper shop, now thankfully reopened again after the proprietors had negotiated a quick burst of having tested positive. We were trying out a little experiment this morning in which Meg used our portable stool as a type of walking stick when negotiating the downhill sections of the route (which is most of the journey down into town) This seems to have worked as intended because Meg managed all of the journey down to the newsagent without undue difficulty. We then made our way into the park to our usual bench and no longer had we consumed our coffee than our friend, Seasoned World Traveller, hove into view. As we both had had medical consultations in the last week, we swopped notes and travellors tales but didn’t tarry too long as we were all in danger of getting a little too cold. Towards the end of our chat, our Catholic friends from down the road popped along the path as they were evidently having their own ‘constitutional’ as well. Compared with the balmy days of summer and even the autumn, we did not linger too long though as it was quite piossible to get chilled if you were standing still (talking) instead of walking briskly. When we got home, we treated ourself to a curry that we have not made for ourselves for quite a time but used to be a regular once-per-week part of our diet ever since our student days. Today, I tried a slight variation and instread of using the more conventional curry powder we used a Chinese curry paste which our home help had kindly let us have. This was delicious and slightly unusual – I suspect there may have been slight less chilli  powder which made the difference. This afternoon, we settled down to watch a little post-prandial TV and tuned into the second half of the second half of a really exciting rugby match (between Wasps and Toulouse), made all of the more enjoyable because Wasps were narrowly in the lead but Toulouse always looked threatening and one wouldn’t have been surprised if they not managed to snatch a victory in the last few minutes. However, Wasps played some brilliant defensive rugby and made one or two key intercepted passes which made all of the difference.

There are reports that emerged today that  Downing Street staff held ‘wine-time Fridays’ throughout the coronavirus pandemic, with alcohol fetched from a nearby Tesco Metro in a wheelie suitcase and kept in a specially bought £142 fridge. All of this is adding to the steady drip-drip of ‘partygate’ news that is dogging the Tory Party. As it is the weekend, MPs have returned to their constituencies and many (if not most) of them are consulting with their constitutency parties to assess the state of public opinion. Most of these are ‘true blue’ i.e. quite traditional Conservative voters (as opposed to the ‘red-wall’ Tories only elected from ex-Labour seats at the last election if 2019) and by all accounts, they are utterly dismayed by the constant shenanigans emerging from Downing Street. One influental MP, Andrew Bridgen, who represents North West Leicestershire and used to be one of Boris Johnson’s most ardent supporters has indicated that he had had 150 emails expressing dismay about the behaviour of Boris Johnson but by the time these had been responded to by midday, another 168 had arrived (a total of more than 300) This has led Andrew Bridgen to conclude that Boris Johnson has lost his moral authority to lead and that his position is now ‘untenable’. The response from Downing Street has been amazing. A special operation to save Boris Johnon’s own skin in the event of an adverse report from the civil servant Sue Grey (charged with investigating the numerous ‘parties’ in Downing Street) under the code name Operation Save Big Dog. Apparently lists of officials are being drawn up to see who should be sacked and which order once the Gray report is published. It looks as though the strategy might be to blame civil servants and other Downing Street officials in order to protect Boris Johnson and his immediate coterie. One view is that Boris Johnson might just about manage to save his own skin if he can deflect the criticism from himself onto others. It is being pointed out that as a civil servant conducting the investigation, Sue Gray does not have the power to suggest that crimes have been committed and she may be inhibited from a full investigations if officials have destroyed evidence by deleting incriminating emails and the like. All of the pronostication at the moment is that the Gray report will be as factual as possible – the only person who issue sanctions against an individual breaking the Ministerial Code is the Prime Minister himself. In the case of his own misconduct he will be the judge and jury of himself (as our current conventions tend to assume that the Prime Minister is a man of the utmost integrity)

 

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Friday, 14th January, 2022 [Day 669]

Today was the day when our domestic help comes to ‘do’ for us and she is always a welcome sight as we chat over the week’e events. The weather was one of those days when the sky is the clearest blue and the weather was icily cold but not bitter as there was a complete absence of wind to add a chill factor – this is always the kind of climate I associate with Switzerland. It proved to be quite an interesting morning for Meg and I. On our way down the hill, we bumped into our Irish friend and we exchanged our perceptions of the new priest who has just taken over at the parish. We have been invited round for a coffee in the days ahead to which we shall look forward as well as to chat over lots of other things. We also said ‘Hello’ in passing to yet more friends of friends and then proceeded onto our our local newsagents. The shop was open today for the first time in days as it is has been closed as a result of the virus. Apparently, the newsagent and his wife had a light sniffle, tested themselves and were dismayed to find that they tested positive, even though their symptoms were extremely mild. So they had shut the shop for the requisite number of days only to reopen today. Whenever I visit (each morning) I also register my presence via the ‘Test-and-Tace’ app and I had always imagined that in the face of a proximate infection, I would have been informed so I am a little puzzled as to what is going on – perhaps the ‘Test-and-Trace’ has not or is not working as was intended.  Once we got into the park, we met with our Italian friend who we have not seen for a few days and we had a good chat. I showed how to access this blog on her own smart phone so that she can follow our comings and goings, pedestrian though they might be. Then after we had had our coffee, another couple hove into view who we know by sight but had not seen them for a week or so – we exchanged pleasantries and compared notes about the damson gin that we both make. Then we made for home and, together with our domestic help, rationalised a few of the drawers in our bedroom where clothes we had not worn for years and were dispensable were junked to make additional storage space for more recently bought items. Then we treated ourselves to a good meal of trout fillets that we had purchased from Waitrose last Thursday. This was delicious and I felt it probably tasted better than had it been salmon. I cooked it in the same as the seabass we often have but made sure it got turned regularly, as the filletts were quite thick. 

The news bulletins are still on a ‘partygate’ feeding frenzy, not least because revelations keep appearing very day. The latest one reveals that the night before the funeral service of the Duke of Edinburgh, some of the staff in Downing Street were partying away in two separate parties, one playing loud music before the two parties combined in the garden of No. 10. When one of the parties ran out of alcohol, someone was dispatched to a local Tescos with a suitcase, presumably to disguise the contents, so that the party could continue. On the same day, a woman in Hackney was fined £12,000 for holding a large belated birthday party and what influenced the police at the time that this should have been a day of national mourning. I have seen a videoclip of a crowd assembling outside the precincts of Downing Street, complete with  Boris Johnson masks and wine glasses pretending to hold a riotous party. It is now a case of people making fun of the Tories i.e. they are being openly the object of ridicule, which might be much more damaging to them than the conventional modes of political opposition.  What has made these events so newsworthy in visual terms is that the news editors are constantly replayng images of the Queen having to sit alone (because of COVID restrictions) at her own husband’s funeral contrasted with reports of the parties going on at No. 10. The Prime Minister has taken the almost unprecedented step of communicating directly with Buckingham Palace in order to prefer apologies – a most unBoris like thing to do but I suppose by convention he has to go and see the Queen once a week so perhaps he thought he had better get his apology in quickly.

Before we all get too excited about the wane of the Omicron variant, it looks as though a wave of Omicron cases is possible over the summer as people resume social activities and the effect of the vaccines wanes, according to scientists advising the government. I would have thought this was a cast-iron certainty as people will certainly relax ‘too much’ and all precautions will be thrown to the winds.

 

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Thursday, 13th January, 2022 [Day 668]

Today was ‘shopping’ day so it was a case of setting up the alarm, gerting ready promptly and motoring (on a very icy morning) to Droitwich Waitrose to be there at the moment that the doors open. I must say I almost enjoy doing this now that I am on a regular routine and evidently, the number of fellow shoppers is minimal. So the shopping was completely unproblematic although it never ceases to amaze me how two little people manage to consume so much. However, I don’t think I forgot anything of great importance which is always a danger if you enter the supermarket ‘listless’. Since the Christmas tree got put away on ‘Twelth Night’ (over a week ago now) the corner of our hall which the tree used to populate looks incredibly sparse. So I have installed a low-energy minimalist-style table lamp to illuminate that corner and I must say in these dark early mornings and evenings, it is wonderful to behold a little fountain of light. Whether I will continue with this little experiment once the days start to lengthen and the nights shorten, I am unsure but in the meantime it gives me a little fillip of pleasure when I glance down the hall. Meg and I realised that we had a fairly tight turn-around this morning as our hairdresser was due to call at midday. So again we decided to use the car so that we could make a lightning visit into town to get our copy of ‘The Times‘ and get back by midday. After our hair had been cut, we then prepared our lunch which was a little special today as we were treating ourselves to some venison burgers. When we were having a little holiday a few months back in the Brecon Beacons, we popped into a little market hall where we found some superior grill pans being sold off quite cheaply. We bought one of these and I must say it has proved its weight in gold to cook burgers (and fish). It has a ridged design which means that the cooked item does not stick to the bottom of the pan and it takes a real minimum of cooking oil. I have a glass lid to another cooking pot which, quite fortuitously, just happens to fit the square design of the grill pan and so I can cook away without any fear that I will be making a mess of our kitchen hob. 

This afternoon there was a lot of tidying up tp be down and after an involuntary snooze, I set to filing quite a lot of stuff that had accumulated in the last week or so. We had also put all of our Christmas cards on one side because I like to go through a little later rather than throwing them straight away so that I can extract any change of addresses (there are always some) and also keep any which merit a longer reply now that we have the Christmas season well out of the way.

There have been a slew of political (and quasi-political) announcements this afternoon, each of whih has been significant in its own way. The principal story today is, of course, how MPs are positioning themselves with reference to Boris Johnson’s ‘apology’  If we start off in Scotland, each one of the Tory Scottish members of Parliament (MSPs) has now demanded that Johnson should resign after which the insults started to flow as Rees-Mog called the Scottish Tory Leader a ‘lightweight’ and the recriminations have been flying back and forth all day. The Cabinet have been coralled into voicing their support for Boris Johnson which has been enthusiastic by some (Priti Patel, Liz Truss) and lukewarm from others (Rishi Sunak). But practically everybody is waiting to see what the Sue Gray report into ‘partygate’ will reveal. Some members of the Tory Party have been advancing some of the most specious explanations to support Boris Johnson’s walking into his own ‘party’. One was explaining that when he worked in the City, alcohol was often freely flowing so just because alcohol was around doesn’t mean to say that they were not at work (the riposte came from a NHS employee who retorted that if they brought alcohol into work and immediately starting to consume it, they would be sacked on the spot). The second major story is that Buckingham Palace have moved swiftly to ‘take back’ all of the honorific appointments enjoyed by Prince Andrew including his use of the honorific ‘His Royal Highness’ (HRH). This is evidently the Queen trying to ensure that Prince Andrew’s shenanigans do not completely overshadow the celebrations later this year for the Queen’s 70 years on the throne. But it  does seem as Prince Andrew is being cast into the outer darkness and is now on his own. The third big news item was the announcement that isolation periods were now to be reduced from 7 days to 5 days (but with lateral flow tests on day 5 and Day 6)

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Wednesday, 12th January, 2022 [Day 667]

Today was the day on which Boris Johnson had to come before the House of Commons and answer PMQ (Prime Minsisters Questions) on what is being dubbed the ‘partygate’ affair. Since the publication of an invitation sent to 100 staffers in Downing Street and whose authenticity has not been denied, it was evident that Boris Johnson had to come before the House of Commons and give a credible explanation of the events of 20th May, 2020 (the height of the first wave of the pandemic). Meg and I organised our day so that we could be sitting in front of the TV at 12.00pm, so we went down to Waitrose by car and picked up a newspaper and some milk and then made our way to the park for a mini-walk so we could get a breath of fresh air. It was a magnificent blue sky and clear air but pretty cold. We walked sufficiently long to feel that we had had some exercise and fresh air and then jumped into the car to observe the ‘blood sport’  In anticipation of the forthcoming Question Time.  I was wondering to myself exactly what Biris Johnson’s lines of defence would turn out to be. In the event, the apology came in the form of ‘I wandered into the garden and assumed that the gathering was a ‘work event”. The second line of defence came in a repeated plea to wait until the investiagtion into Downing Street parties by the senior civil servant, Sue Gray, was complete and he, Johnson, would come to the Commons when all the facts were known. These explanations were treated with scorn by all of the opposition parties. In particular, Keir Starmer was forensic in the way that he dissected the Prine Minister’s assertion that this was a ‘work event’ when everybody had been asked to bring a bottle and food was laid out on trestle tables. Johnson maintained that he had only come in o the garden to ‘thank’ groups of staff but after 25 minutes he retreated back into the main building to carry on with work. The first explanation offered by Johnson that he didn’t realise that he was attending a party met with universal scorn and was simply not believed.   The second explanation i.e. waiting for the enquiry to complete its work was universally characterised as ‘playing for time’ and ‘kicking the can down the road’ I found it interesting that Johnson was accused several times of lying and I always thought that that was an example of un-parliamentary language that the Speaker would insist on being withdrawn. In fact, the Speaker issued no such request (presumably because he believed it to be true) but it is interesting that the term was allowed to be used and will be entered into Hansard (official report of the proceedings)  One senior MP has described Boris Johnson as a ‘dead man walking’ and it is hard not to agree with this conclusion. Immediately after the PMQ, Boris Johnson was seen ‘working’ the Commons tearooms, a well known technique for drumming up support but one in which Boris Johnson has not indulged before. In a highly charged atmosphere, the whole political class are waiting for any further revelations (even a photograph) and it would not take much to push Johnson over the edge. With what is coming down the road (inflation at 7%, gas price rises, National Insuramce rises, local elections in May) it seems almost impossible that Boris Johnson can survive for long. What I found disturbing was that not a single Tory MP would criticise their own PM in public (this was left to the Leader of the Scottish Tories who has argue that lawbreaking must lead to a resignation) If I were a cartoonist, I would have illustrated Boris Johnson has hanging onto a grid over a huge sewer whilst other politicans stepped on his fingers to make him lose his grip.

A second ‘how are the mighty fallen’ moment was to come in the afternoon when it was announced that Prince Andrew’s attemps to have the action brought against him by Virginia Giuffre had failed. This leaves Prince Andrew with three options, all equally unpalatable.  He can go to trial (which he will  probably lose as in civil cases a jury has only to be convinced with the ‘balance of probablitities’ burden of proof rather than ‘beyond reasonaable doubt’ in criminal cases) A second option would be to appeal the court’s rulings but this is estimated to have a success probablity of 40% at the very best. The third option is to settle for what would no doubt be millions of dollars (and would be tantamount to an admission of guilt) It is rumoured that the Queen is making Prince Andrew pay his own costs in this and hence a villa is being sold in Switzerland but I am sure the ‘bank of Mum and dad’ would be accessed as a last resort.

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