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Boris Johnson’s guilt
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Michael Ejercito
May 30, 2022, 11:39:01 AM5/30/22
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http://www.spectator.co.uk/article/boris-johnsons-guilt
Boris Johnson’s guilt
From magazine issue: 28 May 2022
Boris Johnson’s guilt
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An ability to survive narrow scrapes has been one of Boris Johnson’s
defining qualities. The pictures of Downing Street’s lockdown social
events included in the Sue Gray report were so dull as to be almost
exculpatory: staid gatherings of half a dozen people around a long table
with sandwiches still in their boxes, apple juice poured into a whisky
glass. Far worse happened in No. 10 but Gray did not publish those
photos or look into (for example) the ‘Abba’ party in the No. 10 flat,
saying she felt it inappropriate to do so while police were
investigating. Luckily for Johnson.
The more damaging material came from the emails intercepted, with No. 10
staff being clear that they knew they were breaking the rules they had
collectively designed and enforced on the country. The emails show No.
10 staff asked to hide wine bottles from the cameras – then joked that
they seemed to have ‘got away with’ drinks parties that broke the law.
But in the end, they did not get away with it. The Prime Minister
remains guilty – most explicitly of misleading the House of Commons when
he denied that any parties took place. He has shown a serious failure,
too, in not learning from his mistakes. It is no use him or anyone else
in government complaining about the triviality of the charges. His
government put the lockdown laws on the statute book in the first place,
framing them in such a way as to criminalise everyday interactions.
Now the Prime Minister’s allies plead for clemency. It is in human
nature, they say, to gather to bid farewell to a departing friend or
colleague, to offer friendship and succour. Quite so. Johnson’s allies
further argue that, as he raised his glass in a toast, he did so in a
work capacity – as evidenced by the presence of his red box. This
Jesuitical defence would be more plausible if the government’s laws had
not seen ordinary people dragged to court and found guilty of far milder
offences. Let us consider his defence for the leaving party:
“
I briefly attended such gatherings to thank them for their service –
which I believe is one of the essential duties of leadership.
Particularly important when people need to feel that their contributions
had been appreciated and to keep morale as high as possible.
Does he realise, even now, that he made it illegal for anyone to do this
during lockdown? Where, in his lockdown rules, was the exemption for the
‘essential duties of leadership?’ Where was the clause allowing those
outside the ruling elite to have a regular ‘wine-time Friday?’ Does he
realise that he personally used the powers of his office to send the
police after anyone else who would have attended a gathering to salute a
departing colleague? Or, for that matter, to console a friend, visit a
dying relative or even attend a funeral in numbers greater than
stipulated by the staff of No. 10.
The Prime Minister said it was ‘right’ to salute former colleagues in a
leaving party. He’s quite correct in that it is a decent, humane thing
to do. But consider the childminder in Manchester who was fined for
delivering a birthday card to a child in her care: was it ‘right’ for
her to do so? Of course. Did this help her, when police intercepted her
to enforce the Prime Minister’s rules and took her to court? Not one
bit. His needless, draconian lockdown rules were enforced by police upon
millions of people, with tens of thousands taken to court. No one – not
the pensioner in his allotment, not the mother celebrating her child’s
birthday with two friends – had the chance to argue before the
magistrates that what they were doing was ‘right’.
When police went after two women in Derbyshire for the crime of walking
through a park with takeaway coffee, one might also ask: was it ‘right’
for them to seek each other’s company and avail themselves of the basic
liberty of a free country? Of course. Did Johnson’s laws prohibit this?
Unforgivably: yes. And this is the point.
Most popular
Gavin Mortimer
Marine Le Pen is right to defend Liverpool fans
Marine Le Pen is right to defend Liverpool fans
So to hear him now talk about what was ‘right’ and ‘decent’ is hard to
swallow. This magazine argued for him to decriminalise lockdown rules,
to offer guidance and leave people to judge what is ‘right’ – as was
being done with much success in Sweden and several states of America.
But Johnson refused to do so, preferring to turn Britain into a police
state. While having every intention of flouting the laws when he
considered it opportune to do so.
How ironic that in the November 2020 photograph of Boris Johnson raising
a toast to the spin doctor he had forced to resign, a copy of The
Spectator can be seen resting on the table. This magazine had argued
against that month’s lockdown and its needless criminalisation of
everyday life. By then, the logic for lockdowns had collapsed. But,
thanks in part to a supine opposition, No. 10 pressed ahead anyway.
Those leaving drinks took place when all other social gatherings had
been banned under pain of huge fines.
Lockdowns involved the passing of the most damaging, illiberal laws in
British postwar history. The social and economic cost is still being
counted. Johnson is guilty not simply of breaking his own rules, but of
failing to assess if those rules even worked. The sheer scale of the law
demanded a rigorous assessment of the policies behind it, but no serious
cost-benefit analysis was conducted. Nor were studies commissioned to
ask why infections seemed to have peaked before the previous lockdown.
And no one is now asking why, if lockdown was the only means of holding
back a Covid wave, Sweden has done so well without ever imposing one.
The Prime Minister has not been ‘vindicated’ as he claims. No one who
spent months trying to abide by his lockdown laws is under any doubt of
what went on. He is guilty of presiding over a gung-ho culture in which
lockdown advocates were never properly challenged. He allowed himself to
be bounced into taking deeply damaging decisions. His own instinct to
resist lockdown was not enough: he could have assembled ‘red-team’
advisers to challenge Sage. He could have asked the Treasury for a
cost-benefit analysis of lockdown. He could have made the second
lockdown a matter of guidance, not of law. Instead he closed society
down over and over again, asking his aides to implement laws they
themselves regularly flouted.
Johnson has further opened himself to charges of hypocrisy through his
confected fury about his former spokeswoman Allegra Stratton, who
resigned after being caught on camera making light of the parties that
were being held in No. 10. There is no suggestion that she broke any
rules. She was poking fun at the absurdity of the law and of being asked
to defend such a ridiculous situation.
Her laughter, Johnson declared, had caused national anger – an anger
that he said he shared. He was shocked – shocked! – to find any such
behaviour was happening in No. 10. Stratton resigned on principle, the
only person in No. 10 to have done so.
It is a damning – and accurate – charge against the Prime Minister that
he is no man of principle. Weakness in personal conduct need not
necessarily make a bad prime minister – Johnson’s hero Winston Churchill
drank to excess for most of the second world war. The important part of
leadership is getting the big decisions right. Johnson is often said to
be a leader who manages to do just that – and certainly on Ukraine that
claim can reasonably be made. But on Covid and lockdowns (and, recently,
tax rises) he got some big decisions very wrong. His predicament over
partygate is testament to that.
His failure to be guided by his instinctive liberalism has led him to
the worst and most avoidable disasters of his premiership. He can still
learn from these mistakes. But we are more than halfway through this
parliament: he does not have much time left.
--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
https://www.avg.com
Boris Johnson’s guilt
From magazine issue: 28 May 2022
Boris Johnson’s guilt
Text settings
Comments
Share
An ability to survive narrow scrapes has been one of Boris Johnson’s
defining qualities. The pictures of Downing Street’s lockdown social
events included in the Sue Gray report were so dull as to be almost
exculpatory: staid gatherings of half a dozen people around a long table
with sandwiches still in their boxes, apple juice poured into a whisky
glass. Far worse happened in No. 10 but Gray did not publish those
photos or look into (for example) the ‘Abba’ party in the No. 10 flat,
saying she felt it inappropriate to do so while police were
investigating. Luckily for Johnson.
The more damaging material came from the emails intercepted, with No. 10
staff being clear that they knew they were breaking the rules they had
collectively designed and enforced on the country. The emails show No.
10 staff asked to hide wine bottles from the cameras – then joked that
they seemed to have ‘got away with’ drinks parties that broke the law.
But in the end, they did not get away with it. The Prime Minister
remains guilty – most explicitly of misleading the House of Commons when
he denied that any parties took place. He has shown a serious failure,
too, in not learning from his mistakes. It is no use him or anyone else
in government complaining about the triviality of the charges. His
government put the lockdown laws on the statute book in the first place,
framing them in such a way as to criminalise everyday interactions.
Now the Prime Minister’s allies plead for clemency. It is in human
nature, they say, to gather to bid farewell to a departing friend or
colleague, to offer friendship and succour. Quite so. Johnson’s allies
further argue that, as he raised his glass in a toast, he did so in a
work capacity – as evidenced by the presence of his red box. This
Jesuitical defence would be more plausible if the government’s laws had
not seen ordinary people dragged to court and found guilty of far milder
offences. Let us consider his defence for the leaving party:
“
I briefly attended such gatherings to thank them for their service –
which I believe is one of the essential duties of leadership.
Particularly important when people need to feel that their contributions
had been appreciated and to keep morale as high as possible.
Does he realise, even now, that he made it illegal for anyone to do this
during lockdown? Where, in his lockdown rules, was the exemption for the
‘essential duties of leadership?’ Where was the clause allowing those
outside the ruling elite to have a regular ‘wine-time Friday?’ Does he
realise that he personally used the powers of his office to send the
police after anyone else who would have attended a gathering to salute a
departing colleague? Or, for that matter, to console a friend, visit a
dying relative or even attend a funeral in numbers greater than
stipulated by the staff of No. 10.
The Prime Minister said it was ‘right’ to salute former colleagues in a
leaving party. He’s quite correct in that it is a decent, humane thing
to do. But consider the childminder in Manchester who was fined for
delivering a birthday card to a child in her care: was it ‘right’ for
her to do so? Of course. Did this help her, when police intercepted her
to enforce the Prime Minister’s rules and took her to court? Not one
bit. His needless, draconian lockdown rules were enforced by police upon
millions of people, with tens of thousands taken to court. No one – not
the pensioner in his allotment, not the mother celebrating her child’s
birthday with two friends – had the chance to argue before the
magistrates that what they were doing was ‘right’.
When police went after two women in Derbyshire for the crime of walking
through a park with takeaway coffee, one might also ask: was it ‘right’
for them to seek each other’s company and avail themselves of the basic
liberty of a free country? Of course. Did Johnson’s laws prohibit this?
Unforgivably: yes. And this is the point.
Most popular
Gavin Mortimer
Marine Le Pen is right to defend Liverpool fans
Marine Le Pen is right to defend Liverpool fans
So to hear him now talk about what was ‘right’ and ‘decent’ is hard to
swallow. This magazine argued for him to decriminalise lockdown rules,
to offer guidance and leave people to judge what is ‘right’ – as was
being done with much success in Sweden and several states of America.
But Johnson refused to do so, preferring to turn Britain into a police
state. While having every intention of flouting the laws when he
considered it opportune to do so.
How ironic that in the November 2020 photograph of Boris Johnson raising
a toast to the spin doctor he had forced to resign, a copy of The
Spectator can be seen resting on the table. This magazine had argued
against that month’s lockdown and its needless criminalisation of
everyday life. By then, the logic for lockdowns had collapsed. But,
thanks in part to a supine opposition, No. 10 pressed ahead anyway.
Those leaving drinks took place when all other social gatherings had
been banned under pain of huge fines.
Lockdowns involved the passing of the most damaging, illiberal laws in
British postwar history. The social and economic cost is still being
counted. Johnson is guilty not simply of breaking his own rules, but of
failing to assess if those rules even worked. The sheer scale of the law
demanded a rigorous assessment of the policies behind it, but no serious
cost-benefit analysis was conducted. Nor were studies commissioned to
ask why infections seemed to have peaked before the previous lockdown.
And no one is now asking why, if lockdown was the only means of holding
back a Covid wave, Sweden has done so well without ever imposing one.
The Prime Minister has not been ‘vindicated’ as he claims. No one who
spent months trying to abide by his lockdown laws is under any doubt of
what went on. He is guilty of presiding over a gung-ho culture in which
lockdown advocates were never properly challenged. He allowed himself to
be bounced into taking deeply damaging decisions. His own instinct to
resist lockdown was not enough: he could have assembled ‘red-team’
advisers to challenge Sage. He could have asked the Treasury for a
cost-benefit analysis of lockdown. He could have made the second
lockdown a matter of guidance, not of law. Instead he closed society
down over and over again, asking his aides to implement laws they
themselves regularly flouted.
Johnson has further opened himself to charges of hypocrisy through his
confected fury about his former spokeswoman Allegra Stratton, who
resigned after being caught on camera making light of the parties that
were being held in No. 10. There is no suggestion that she broke any
rules. She was poking fun at the absurdity of the law and of being asked
to defend such a ridiculous situation.
Her laughter, Johnson declared, had caused national anger – an anger
that he said he shared. He was shocked – shocked! – to find any such
behaviour was happening in No. 10. Stratton resigned on principle, the
only person in No. 10 to have done so.
It is a damning – and accurate – charge against the Prime Minister that
he is no man of principle. Weakness in personal conduct need not
necessarily make a bad prime minister – Johnson’s hero Winston Churchill
drank to excess for most of the second world war. The important part of
leadership is getting the big decisions right. Johnson is often said to
be a leader who manages to do just that – and certainly on Ukraine that
claim can reasonably be made. But on Covid and lockdowns (and, recently,
tax rises) he got some big decisions very wrong. His predicament over
partygate is testament to that.
His failure to be guided by his instinctive liberalism has led him to
the worst and most avoidable disasters of his premiership. He can still
learn from these mistakes. But we are more than halfway through this
parliament: he does not have much time left.
--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
https://www.avg.com
HeartDoc Andrew
May 30, 2022, 11:58:08 AM5/30/22
to
the U.K. & elsewhere is by rapidly ( http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19 )
finding out at any given moment, including even while on-line, who
among us are unwittingly contagious (i.e pre-symptomatic or
asymptomatic) in order to http://tinyurl.com/ConvinceItForward (John
15:12) for them to call their doctor and self-quarantine per their
doctor in hopes of stopping this pandemic. Thus, we're hoping for the
best while preparing for the worse-case scenario of the Alpha lineage
mutations and others like the Omicron, Gamma, Beta, Epsilon, Iota,
Lambda, Mu & Delta lineage mutations combining via
slip-RNA-replication to form hybrids like
http://tinyurl.com/Deltamicron that may render current COVID
vaccines/monoclonals/medicines/pills no longer effective.
Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry ( http://tinyurl.com/RapidOmicronTest
) and hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.
So how are you ?
...because we mindfully choose to openly care with our heart,
HeartDoc Andrew <><
--
Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD
Cardiologist with an http://bit.ly/EternalMedicalLicense
2024 & upwards non-partisan candidate for U.S. President:
http://WonderfullyHungry.org
and author of the 2PD-OMER Approach:
http://bit.ly/HeartDocAndrewCare
which is the only **healthy** cure for the U.S. healthcare crisis
Michael Ejercito
May 30, 2022, 12:12:06 PM5/30/22
to
Michael
HeartDoc Andrew
May 30, 2022, 12:18:58 PM5/30/22
to
Michael Ejercito wrote:
While wonderfully hungry in the Holy Spirit, Who causes (Deuteronomy
8:3) us to hunger, I note that you, Michael, are rapture ready (Luke
17:37 means no COVID just as circling eagles don't have COVID) and
pray (2 Chronicles 7:14) that our Everlasting (Isaiah 9:6) Father in
Heaven continues to give us "much more" (Luke 11:13) Holy Spirit
(Galatians 5:22-23) so that we'd have much more of His Help to always
say/write that we're "wonderfully hungry" in **all** ways including
especially caring to http://tinyurl.com/ConvinceItForward (John 15:12
as shown by http://tinyurl.com/RapidOmicronTest ) with all glory (
http://bit.ly/Psalm112_1 ) to GOD (aka HaShem, Elohim, Abba, DEO), in
the name (John 16:23) of LORD Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Amen.
Laus DEO !
Suggested further reading:
https://groups.google.com/g/sci.med.cardiology/c/5EWtT4CwCOg/m/QjNF57xRBAAJ
Shorter link:
http://bit.ly/StatCOVID-19Test
Be hungrier, which really is wonderfully healthier especially for
diabetics and other heart disease patients:
http://bit.ly/HeartDocAndrew touts hunger (Luke 6:21a) with all glory
( http://bit.ly/Psalm112_1 ) to GOD, Who causes us to hunger
(Deuteronomy 8:3) when He blesses us right now (Luke 6:21a) thereby
removing the http://tinyurl.com/HeartVAT from around the heart
8:3) us to hunger, I note that you, Michael, are rapture ready (Luke
17:37 means no COVID just as circling eagles don't have COVID) and
pray (2 Chronicles 7:14) that our Everlasting (Isaiah 9:6) Father in
Heaven continues to give us "much more" (Luke 11:13) Holy Spirit
(Galatians 5:22-23) so that we'd have much more of His Help to always
say/write that we're "wonderfully hungry" in **all** ways including
especially caring to http://tinyurl.com/ConvinceItForward (John 15:12
as shown by http://tinyurl.com/RapidOmicronTest ) with all glory (
http://bit.ly/Psalm112_1 ) to GOD (aka HaShem, Elohim, Abba, DEO), in
the name (John 16:23) of LORD Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Amen.
Laus DEO !
Suggested further reading:
https://groups.google.com/g/sci.med.cardiology/c/5EWtT4CwCOg/m/QjNF57xRBAAJ
Shorter link:
http://bit.ly/StatCOVID-19Test
Be hungrier, which really is wonderfully healthier especially for
diabetics and other heart disease patients:
http://bit.ly/HeartDocAndrew touts hunger (Luke 6:21a) with all glory
( http://bit.ly/Psalm112_1 ) to GOD, Who causes us to hunger
(Deuteronomy 8:3) when He blesses us right now (Luke 6:21a) thereby
removing the http://tinyurl.com/HeartVAT from around the heart
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