Today was going to be the day when the long awaited Sue Gray report could perhaps be published but more of that later. As it was, Meg felt a little poorly this morning so decided to stay for an extra hour or so in bed to recover (which she did). In the meantime, I went into town on my own to collect the newspaper and to pop into our local Waitrose which I now use as though it were a corner shop. Then it was a question of rapidly rapidly home in order to be parked in front of the TV for Prime Minister’s Questions which normally starts promptly on Wednesdays at 12.00 midday. The burning question today is to whether the Sue Gray report will be handed to Parliament (and the world) in its entirety or will it be delayed, redacted, edited, provided in only summary form of the findings alone or whatever permutation. Boris Johnson under intense questionning from Keir Starmer agreed that the report said ‘Of course, I will do what I said‘. This rather Delphic reply has left many of us scratching our heads and thinking  what it is said that he has said on this subject to which he was referring. There is a view that the PM has left himself a bit of ‘wriggle room’ in case he wants to let out a version of the report that just happens to be the least damaging to him.  The whole of PMQ was a fairly typical scenario in which the lawyer-like approach of direct questions from Keir Starmer was met with bluster and half evasions by Boris Johnson who, needless to say, would not directly answer any of the questions put to him. In the meantime, the whole country is awaiting for publication of the Sue Gray report which seems to be held up by being passed through the hands of government lawyers. GIven that Friday is the day when many MP’s leave Westminster in order to devote themselves to constituency business, it could well be that the whole report will be delayed now until next Monday.

This afternoon, I had just settled down to reply yet again to the bank who looks after our communal affairs with yet another request to fill in parts of a doument which I have submitted to them four times already. I have the feeling that there is a computer algorithm rather than a ‘human’ assessing the form because every time I speak to a member of the safeguarding team, they can never tell me what information the system requires that they do not already have. But just before this task, I consulted my emails and one of my University of Winchester ‘buddies’ had suggested that we have a Skype session at 4.00pm this afternoon.  So faced with a bank session or a videochat with old friends, it was no contest really and I readily succumbed to the pleasure of chatting, albeit at long range. Time flew by and we spent an hour and a half before we realised that we did need to prepare tea and get other things done this afternoon.

Another scandal has emerged today and, interestingly enough, nothing to do with parties held in Downing Street in contravention of the COVID-19 regulations. This was a story in which the PM’s wife, Carrie Johnson, may well now have a measure of responsibility. The story relates to the rapid evacuation of the embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, in which there were heart-rending pictures of people who helped the British (interpreters and the like) and their families not being able to get on an evacuation flight. All of this was redolent of the images we remember of the fall of Saigon when the Americans withdrew ignominiously from Vietnam. There was a charity, run by somebody with evident connections with the military, concerned with the evacuation of sick and wounded animals from Afghanistan. Of course, this was being done as a ‘private’ operation and the UK government have consistently maintained that it had no part in the evacuation operation. However, a Foreign Office memo has now arisen in which Boris Johnson is said to have ‘authorised’ the flight which evacuated the sick animals. So the fundamental political question which arises is this: did the authorisation and emergency evacuation of sick animals take priority over the evacuation of human personnel? This is quite a murky story, as one might imagine, compounded by the fact that the Foreign Office have always denied that evacuation of animals impeded the evacuation of humans. But a memo has now emerged in which the PM did authorise such a flight – and it quite easy to construct a narrative, all too believable in the case of the British, in which animal life took precedence over, or least impeded, the evacuation of human life. The fact that the story has emerged today only adds to the picture of a government mired in duplicity and evasion.

Today is my Pilates day so we always need to have a fairly quick turn around on days like these. However, in the wee small hours of the morning, I decided to access the Aldi website to discern their opening hours because I am minded to revert to my previous shopping haunts at least for an experimental period. It may well be that I get ino a pattern of alternating Aldi with Waitrose and that way I can get the cheapness of Aldi with the quality associated with Waitrose. I was quite pleased, though, to be offered the option of a ‘Click and Collect’ option at my local Aldi store and so, almost on the spur of the moment, I decided to give it a go. Although it was the middle of the night, I imagined in my mind that I was traversing the aisles of Waitrose so that I could compile my shopping list for Aldi. When it came to the checkout, I was amazed to discover that despite the levy of £4.95 for the Aldi ‘Click and Collect’ services (lessened by savings on petrol and car parking charges), my entire shopping bill came to less than half the price I have been paying these last few weeks in Waitrose. So this Thursday, if all works well, all I do is turn up with my receipt between 8.00 and 9.00, and presumably some shopping bags and everything will have been done for me. During the course of the day, I have remembered some things which I had forgotten in the middle of the night but I can make adjustments to the list right up to the night before.

We knew that we had to have a quick turn around today but we collected the newspaper and then into Waitrose to pick up some supplies. There we heard the incredibly good news that the coffee bar in Waitrose, despite being closed in several Waitrose stores, is definitely to be reprieved in ours – and the newly appointed manager may even be thinking of a little party-cum-celebrations on the opening day which is in about a month’s time towards the end of February. We bumped into our Irish friend on the way down, met with a Waitrose regular who told us the good news about the coffee bar reopening and thence to our normal seat. There we gulped down some hot coffee, had a brief chat with Veteran Octogenarian Hiker who was busy trying to get 10k of kilometres under his belt for today and then shot home where I had about a five minute turn around time. I needed to depart for my class so that I could pop along the High Street and get the battery replaced in my watch which has just stopped working. As it has not replaced at all during pandemic days, then it is probably about 2½ years since I had the previous battery installed. I was promised that the new battery would proibably have a life of some 2-3 years which suits me just fine – the battery cost me £5.00 to replace but I could have bought a whole new watch for either £5 or a better design for £7.

Some quite dramatic political developments were evident this morning when the Metropolitan Police announced that there was to be a formal investigation of some of the ‘gatherings’ in 10 Downing Street. Later in the day, it emerged that the police were going to investigate some 7-8 of the approx. 17 happenings that had been reported to them. It seems as though Sue Gray herself  had passed evidence of possible breach of the COVID regulations to the Met. For its part, the Met indicated that some of these incidents passed their own criteria for police investigation – that personnel had knowingly organised illegal parties, that there was no apparent defence to these allegations and that public trust and confidence in the judicial process would be undermined if further investigations were not pursued. At first, it seemed that the Sue Gray report might have to be put on hold before it was announced that the ‘findings’ would be published immediately. The question remains swirling around Westminster whether the report will be published in full or whether there will be some redactions so that junior civil servants, for example, are not named and shamed. In Parliament, Boris Johnson announced his satisfaction that a police investigation was underway. I am starting to wonder whether despite the close association with criminality, Boris Johnson might be gaming the fact that he himself would not be unduly ‘fingered’ (as this might smack of interference with the governance of the country) and he could point to the ‘criminality’ of others in order to deflect criticism of himself. Meanwhile, the phrase has been used this evening that Johnson could be accused of ‘misconduct in public office’ for which the penalty could well be a gaol sentence. It is possible that the Sue Gray report may be published tomorrow, Wednesday but I suspect that Thursday might be a better bet. 

Meg and I woke up feeling tired this morning – perhaps the overcast and gloomy skies have got something to do with it. We knew we were going to have a slightly different routine this morning as we had scheduled dental appointments right in the middle of the day and there would not have been time to get our walk in and still get to the dentist on time.  We have in our bathroom two of those ‘disposable’ electric toothbrushes that we find less aggressive than the expensive ones on the market. Both of these toothbrushes had tiny AAA batteries in them that had died so we set about to change them. Is it just me or is it made extraordinarily difficult to change the batteries in the disposable variety? One of them involved the most minute of grub screws that people of poor eyeseight might not even notice whilst the other required the combination of a thin-bladed screwdriver and a rubbery ‘cap remover’ (used to enhance one’s grip) to reveal its guts inside. Anyway I managed to get that done and then we thought we had better get a lateral flow test done on ourselves. Even though the modern versions of the test seem to miss out the throat swab before the nostril swab, I have read (somewhere) that you enhance the reliability of the test if you continue to perform the test on both throat and nose. This is what Meg and I did and it is always reassuring to find out that we are both negative. We both have the slightest of winter sniffles at the moment and it is possible that we could have tested positive but we live to fight another day. Then it was off to the dentist where each of us had to fill in three forms – one a patient information form, one a health questionnaire and the final one bing a COVID specific form. Anyway we both got seen with the minimum of fuss – although I have a slight cracking of the enamel around an old filling that will  need to be put right in a week or so. As we were in the car, we picked up the newspaper and got straight home, not unhappy that we had missed out a walk as the weather is not too pleasant.

In the afternoon, I thought I spend another plesant hour communicating with the bank that looks after our communal facilities in order to navigate thir safeguarding procedures. All of this is because in the last few days I received one of their ‘We require more information..‘ type emails. I got through relatively quickly, passed their security but had the misfortune of getting a heavily accented voice at the other end who was difficult to understand. The upshot of all of this is that I have to wait and ignore the request in the last email because they are still in the process of evaluating the latest provided information. I am almost certain what the next step in the procedure is going to be and it won’t be a ‘we are pleased to inform you that you have complied with all our safeguarding procedures‘ type of letter but I suppose I have developed a lot of patience in all of this saga.

Whilst on the computer, I saw a clip on Sky News that I have never seen before. This was Lord Agnew, a government junior Treasury minister (in the Lords) with responsibility for combatting fraud resigning whilst actually at the dispatch box. He has resigned because the peer told the chamber that the Treasury ‘appears to have no knowledge or little interest in the consequences of fraud to our economy or our society‘, adding that a mix of ‘arrogance, indolence and ignorance freezes the government machine.’ Under these circumstances and with millions of pounds being handed to companies some of whom were not even trading, the peer felt it would be immoral to continue in post. The astonished lords even gave him a round of applause as he swept out of the chamber. Meanwhile, Dominic Cummings has announced that he will only give evidence to the Sue Gray enquiry into ‘partygate’ in writing rather than verbally (for somewhat obscure reasons) but he is also intimating that there is a lot more incriminating material out there in the form of emails or even photographs but that individuals are not releasing this just yet as they are being threatened by Boris Johnson’s coterie – however, Dominc Cummings has hinted that this may be released after the Sue Gray report sees the light of day. The Prime Minister has committed a ‘U’ turn by ordering a Cabinet office enquiry into the fate of the woman Muslim MP, Nusrat Ghani.  She has claimed that a government whip has said to her that ‘her Muslimness was raised as an issue’ when she asked why she had lost her job as a junior Transport Minister.

You never know what a day will bring and so it proved today. We did not get to a particularly brilliant start today because no sooner had I arrived at the newsagent than I realised that I forgotten to bring my pre-paid token along with me. I know I could have asked to get the newspaper ‘on tick’ until I could go down and supply my token but I thought I could probably collect the newspaper later in the day so I turned on my heel and walked straight back home. After Meg and I had watched the ‘Sunday‘ (politics programme) we made our way down to the park hoping to see our University of Birmingham friend today. However he texted us to say that he had to help out a friend in distress who had just experienced a flood so he was going to go over with some heating devices and help to dry him out. Instead, we had our coffee and were than approached by a chap who seemed rather garrulous. It transpired that he had a brain haemorrhage a few years ago and was under the surgeon’s knife for hours and could well have died. Anyway, it appears that by perseverance, he had managed a fair degree of rehabilitation and although he still had some balance, coordination and concentration difficulties, his speech was totally regained. We complemented him on the remarkable revovery that he had shown – and hope we could do the same if a similar event occurred to us. Just then, our friend the Seasoned World Traveller hove into sight and, despite the cold, we stood and chatted for a bit about politics, recent TV viewing and the like.Then we started back home, not least to rescue some vegetables that I had roasting in the oven and were pleased to meet up (by accident) with our Irish friends who are off on holiday to Tenerife in a few days time so we were pleased to have a chat before their departure. 

This afternoon, I set myself the task of going through a pile of newspapers which I have kept in case there was anything of interest I wished to retain. Most of this pile eventually got junked but I did find something quite useful which I had overlooked. Each year, towards the end of the year, The Times publishes in its colour magazine a series of cartoons generally picking out the newsworthy highlights of the year. The Times cartoonist does tend to tie two current events into a single cartoon so sometimes the actual cartoon fails to amuse as much as was intended until it is decoded by the background knowledge of the year’s events. This particular edition of the colour magazine is well worth keeping for the brilliance of the cartoons and the acerbity of the political comment. Having got this quite onerous task disposed of, I then started on the more pleasant tak of soup making. I am used the Waitrose ‘Soffrito’ mixture but I complement it with a lightly fried onion and 2-3 desert spoonfuls of a Balti sauce to add a little, but not too much, piquancy. On this occasion, I am going to split the soup into two halves so that we are not overwhelmed today and have some left for later on in the week.

The political news today is dominated by the claim by the UK’s first female Muslim minister (Nusrat Ghani) that she was not reappointed to her ministerial job (sacked?) because ‘her Muslimness made colleagues uncomfortable’ After her sacking, she apparently had an unpleasant meeting with the Chief Whip and subsequently with Boris Johnson, both of whom indicated that she should take matters of concern like this  to the Tory party’s own complaint procedures. Her counter-argument is that this is a Government matter, not just a matter for the Conservative party – but you can see here where both sides are coming from. The interesting thing about this is that some fellow Asian (and Muslim?) ministers like Sajid Javid and Nadhim Zahawi have spoken generously in her support whilst the Chief Whip has implied that her account is a fabrication. Not attempting to arbitrate in this tangled story, it does appear that Boris Johnson has not demonstrated a firm and decisive hand in this story and current fractures within the existing cabinet must be the last thing that Boris Johnson needs at the moment. Dominic Cummings is to be interviewed by Sue Gray tomorrow before the compilation and presentation of her report on or about Thursday. Cummings has argued that he will swear on oath  that his account is true – would Boris Johnson do the same? Certainly his evidence looks damning but is it just words – or is there anything approaching proof that his account (that he informed Boris Johnson of the illegality of drinks parties) is to be believed? There may be a straight conflict of evidence here (Cummings said one thing whilst Johnson says another) Will Sue Gray be able or willing to adjudicate between two conflicting accounts? We shall see in a few days time.

So Saturday has dawned with a cold but not that cold feeling compared with some days recently. These days, I seem to be counting off the days until the publication of the Sue Gray report into ‘partygate’ for which the latest best guess seems to be Thursday so not too long to go now. Once Meg and I got our act together, we wandered down into town under no real political pressure and I dropped Meg on the bench outside Waitrose whilst I went off to collect the Saturday edition of the newspaper. Whilst inside Waitrose, I looked at their extensive sauces section and discovered some sachets of Sweet Chilli and Garlic cooking sauce. Why I am delighted to have found this sauce is because when I consulted the web, I discovered an excellent YouTube video in which an (English) chef demonstrated exactly how pollock could be cooked using the chilli and garlic sauce as a type of marinade. This looked so easy to prepare and so good to eat, I am looking forward to my next culinary adventure. The interesting thing about all of this is that when you look at the completed meal, the cost of the sauce is probably equal to the cost of the fish in the first place. But given that pollock is such a mild-flavoured fish, it is necessary to add some flavour to it and this recipe has obviously been tried and tested before the video was made.

Tonight is the night when we attend church for a 6.00-7.00 service and it will be the third week that we have experienced with our new priest. Attendance is always a little down when the weather is poor and the cold strikes but we expect to see many of the regular ‘old faithfuls’ this evening.   I am always quite interested in the sermon as this part of the service is completely unpredictable and I am always interested to see what messages can be crammed into a five-minute slot. On Radio 4, there used to be a regular slot called ‘Thought for the Day‘ and this was generally given over to a variety of denominations and religious speakers – the contributions of the speakers from the Jewish, Sikh, Muslim and Hindu callings was always quite interesting, given that in the normal course of events one would not often hear what these religious persuasions had to offer. However, I was always incredibly impressed by what various speakers could cram into a 5-minute slot. I particularly remember Rabbi Lionel Blue (the first Jewish Rabbi to acknowledge the fact that he was gay) and he contributed to ‘Thought for the Day‘ for a period of 25 years. His Wikipedia entry is particularly interesting and his contribution was nearly always a comic and often self-deprecating story or extended joke with a little moral twist at the end.Given what could be said in 5 minutes, I often used to wonder in my lecturing days how good a lecture I could deliver if it turned out to be the equivalent of 12 times a five minutes ‘Thought for the Day‘ slot.

When the TV is poor on a Saturday evening, Meg and I often turn to YouTube for an opera performance. The only slight snag about this is that unless you know the opera particularly well, you are never quite sure how long the performance is going to be and we don’t particularly fancy making a late night of it, even though tomorrow is a Sunday. If we try that this evening, we must remind ourselves to get our viewing started quite early. We tend to stick to our favourites drawn from Mozart, Puccini and Verdi so we might just might have a go at ‘Madame Butterfly’ (Puccini) this evening. The fascinating thing about this opera is that the theme (an American fathering a child in an oriental coutry and then coming along to claim the child as their own and taking them back to America) is exactly what happened when American GI’s fathered children in Vietnam. Some 26,000 children were brought back to the USA. They grew up as the leftovers of an unpopular war, straddling two worlds but belonging to neither. Most never knew their fathers. Many were abandoned by their mothers at the gates of orphanages. Some were discarded in rubbish bins. 

The big political story today is whether the over-zealous behaviour of the Tory party whips has led to consequences which might have crossed over illegality. One particular charge is that the whips had threatened to deny the constituents of a particular Tory MP a new school if the MP rebelled (paradoxically, over the withdrawal of the provisions for free school meals). Labour MP Chris Bryant, who is chairman of the Commons Standards Committee, said alleged threats to pull public funding from members’ constituencies amounted to ‘misconduct in public office’ and should be reported to the police.

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.

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.

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 imprecation‘You 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…

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.

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!