He's now an electoral liability - the stories of people who, at this time, were prevented from saying goodbye to loved ones dying of Covid, while he literally partied, are numerous. Take this, from a DUP (Northern Irish party, normally allied with the Tories) MP:
Or this:
Like those assembled with their bottles in Downing Street, I, too, had broken the government’s existing guidelines, implemented to mitigate the spread of Covid-19, in a familiar garden. After my sister Karina’s funeral, I had gone to my mother’s house. It was a baking hot day and, while the circumstances didn’t really allow me to “make the most of the lovely weather”, the sunshine did permit me and my other sister, Kirsty, to sit in our mum’s garden, at the state-appointed distance from each other, and recall the many joys, as well as strains, that Karina’s life had brought. There were three of us in the garden, from three separate households, one more than was permitted. It might not have been exactly to the letter of the law, but we reckoned it was the least our grief would permit.
...
That evening, as I walked alone, the streets were piercingly quiet. How sad it all is, I thought, how devastatingly sad. And yet, what consolation there is in seeing and hearing these manifest absences; silences that speak of self-denial and mutual respect. The sepulchral pallor that my corner of London had been bathed in was the result of a shared commitment to rules, designed by them, to keep us, our loved ones and our wider society safe. I walked past my neighbours’ houses; friends numbed by screentime and family dynamics, unsure how long this would all last, no access to society beyond their phones, windows open to mitigate against that lovely, lovely weather. I couldn’t help but feel grateful that my community was taking the deaths of people such as my sister as seriously and profoundly as I was. Their confinement spoke of a silent but wholehearted sympathy for families such as mine. They knew, they felt too, that we were all in it together.
Well, not
all of us, it turns out. Not
them.
Just under two miles separates my corner of London from the garden of Downing Street. I am, today, haunted by the tinkling of those glasses there on that sun-drenched night, the echoing of their thin laughter, the stifled chuckles as they practised their imagined denials and, most perniciously, the leadership that encouraged it to happen. Their actions feel like direct assaults in the face of my family’s, and all of our shared national, tragedy. To me, and I’m sure many others, the revelations of the manifest and repeated failures of those in power to understand, empathise or show solidarity with what the people of this country experienced during that time have released from the body politic a stench so toxic that I can’t see how they will be able to put it back in the bottle, no matter how desperately they try. They can’t point the finger anywhere else this time, can they? After all, they brought the bottle themselves.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/12/rory-kinnear-no-10-lockdown-party-buried-sisterScottish Tory leader calls for Boris Johnson to resign
The Scottish Tory leader has called for Boris Johnson to resign, after the prime minister apologised for attending a lockdown-busting party in Downing Street, claiming he believed it was a “work event”.
Many Conservative MPs said they remained unsatisfied by Johnson’s carefully worded explanation, delivered at the start of Wednesday’s prime minister’s questions.
But Douglas Ross, who spoke to Johnson on Wednesday, is the first senior Tory figure to call publicly for the prime minister’s immediate departure. “Regretfully I have to say that his position is no longer tenable,” he told reporters.
...
Julian Sturdy, the Conservative MP for York Outer, said Johnson’s claim he thought the gathering was work-related “will not wash with the British public, who at the relevant time were making significant sacrifices”, adding in a statement to the Yorkshire Post that he shares the “frustration and disappointment of the many constituents”.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/12/scottish-tory-leader-calls-for-boris-johnson-to-resignThe public didn't elect him - they elected their local MP. And it's those Tory MPs who now weigh how much he endangers their seat at the next election. Two thirds of voters think he should resign; and one third of Tory voters thought he should,
before this latest scandal broke:
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/two-thirds-voters-boris-johnson-resign-byob-party-scandal-1395002
https://metro.co.uk/2022/01/10/one-in-three-tories-think-boris-johnson-should-resign-poll-finds-15891154/
In December, he lied to parliament about there being no more parties - when he'd been at one. In the past, a direct lie to parliament was considered grounds for resignation.
Sir Roger Gale, MP for North Thanet, who is regarded as a senior backbencher, said it was clear Johnson misled parliament; politically, he was a “dead man walking”. Gale told BBC Radio 4’s World at One:
Unfortunately, what the prime minister has said today leaves people like me in an impossible situation. We now know that the prime minister spent 25 minutes at what was quite clearly a party. That means that he misled the house.
I fear that it is now going to have to be the work of the 1922 [Committee] to determine precisely how we proceed. If you look at the Twittersphere after prime minister’s question time today, it sounds to me I am afraid very much as though politically the prime minister is a dead man walking.
Also condemnatory was Ruth Davidson, the former leader of the Scottish Conservatives. On Twitter, she referred to a previous comment criticising the government’s circumlocutions around the lockdown parties scandal, and added:
And I’m not convinced today drew a line under anything either.
Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s former most-senior aide, who has become a staunch critic of his old boss, also used Twitter to give his insider’s perspective. The party took place two days before the Guardian and Daily Mirror Barnard Castle exposé that precipitated Cummings’ own downfall. He wrote:
Whole point of why I & other official told MR – WTF YOU DOING HOLDING A PARTY – was cos the invite = obv totally SOCIAL NOT WORK (UNlike all the mtngs in garden). No way ‘technically within rules’. [Shopping trolley] bullshit cos altern is admit he broke rules + resign.
Not all Conservative MPs were so loquacious in their responses. One unnamed Tory, asked by a Sky News reporter to describe the revelations of PMQs, replied:
Fucked.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/12/dead-man-walking-tory-mps-respond-to-pms-apology-for-party
= new reply since forum marked as read
