Err err Dale I hit you More stubborn than a mule. Boris Johnson pouts like a spoiled child and insists he did nothing wrong at Downing Street’s illegal parties during the pandemic. That his fault is not his, but his subordinates, who misinformed him. That yes, he deceived Parliament, it is true, but he did it unintentionally. And that punishing him would be a great injustice, he doesn’t deserve it. Whoa, whoa, whoa…
The former prime minister, who had to resign (rather was expelled) due to the blows of partygate, is risking his political career, or what is left of it, with the sanction imposed by the House of Commons committee for lying to the deputies when he assured on multiple occasions that social distance and the draconian confinement rules that he had imposed were maintained in Downing Street.
Partygate is in some ways to Johnson what January 6 is to Donald Trump. But if one thing was the equivalent of an attempted coup in the United States (which teaches the entire planet lessons in democracy), with all the seriousness that this implies and the death of several people, the other is in comparison a childish game, more farce than tragedy. Of course, it has been analyzed by active and passive, rivers of ink have been written and it already bores even the sheep.
The soap opera concludes today with a four-hour questioning of Johnson by the seven members of the parliamentary committee (four Conservatives, two Labor and one from the Scottish SNP), broadcast live on television. But the Tory politician already advanced yesterday the arguments for his defense with the publication of a 50-page report. He basically admits to misleading Commons, “but unknowingly, not recklessly or intentionally.”
Boris, whose tough face is memorable and ended up costing him dearly, maintains his innocence as those adorable creatures who paint the walls of the house with felt-tip pen and then claim they did it by accident. But he goes further and denounces (like Trump) a political conspiracy by his enemies to get him out of the way. A witch hunt, like McCarthy’s against the communists in the United States of the fifties, but directed against him, the anti-communist par excellence.
Johnson affirms with his usual glibness that the investigation is rigged. “There is no document that incriminates me,” he says, “only the plea of ??my former adviser Dominic Cummings, who has sworn to me for having fired him, and a report from the official Sue Gray, who – oh, coincidence! – has just been hired as a consultant by the Labor Party”. In his opinion, everything smells of singe. “Knowingly deceiving Parliament would never have crossed my mind,” she says with the conviction of compulsive liars, a usual description of him. I never thought Downing Street gatherings could be considered parties, and whenever I asked I was told they were perfectly legal. You have to take into account that it is a small semi-detached house where many people live and work, 18 hours a day”.
Johnson thinks he and his team had a right to “let off steam,” but the rest of the country couldn’t even say goodbye to their dying parents. Will those in charge of judging him believe it?
