The police have issues 50 fines to Downing Street staff for attending parties during lockdown including the Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, the two most senior people in government. They broke the very laws they put in place, lied about it repeatedly before finally getting exposed and prosecuted. And yet has either offered to resign?
Our prime minister has been fined for breaking the law during lockdown - the first sitting prime minister of the UK to be found to have broken a law whilst in office. The “ministerial code” which is a loose selection of rules that ministers are meant to follow on and honour system says he should resign.
He’s not resigning. And his party is openly backing him.
The excuses offered are feeble. The war in Ukraine in of no relevance. The cost of living crisis was caused by him. And no, everyone else wasn’t doing the same thing.
The fine is pocket change to him, and even then Boris tried to block the investigation and the report and was clearly held to different standards than a “private individual” and given far more courtesy by the police. This undermines the principle of rule of law which is supposedly a “British value” and a cornerstone of liberal democracy.
It is a sign that we are sliding ever further towards authoritarianism.
It is very clear that Boris can do literally anything and his party will back him. MPs know it would be a bad time for an election, that there’s no one on the front bench who could easily steer them through it. They don’t want to lose their seats or their spot on the gravy train.
Meanwhile, people will die of cold or starvation or suicide or not being able to get vital medication or of panic and despair at not being able to pay their bills leading to suicide. Children will go cold and hungry.
But it’s alright, because we’re protecting the profits of energy companies, and your taxes are going straight into the pocket of Tory party doners.
They know the end is nigh, but they’re determined to get every last bit of cash they can out of the British people first.
This is a democracy that is no longer functional, a country being run solely for the benefit of the super rich. It’s not enough to say “hold on for two years and we can vote them out” because very clearly the whole system is broken. And anyway, people will be dead by then.
Electoral politics, party politics are not the answer. We need something more radical.
I remember the sick dread I felt after the last election, knowing that as a result of Johnson’s win, people would die. Disabled people, poor people, Black people would die unnecessary deaths.
But god, I could never have imagined how many. So many tens of thousands of additional lives lost, still being lost, to these authoritarian, plutocratic kleptocrats.
Back when Boris Johnson took office, if you told me that his government would be brought to the brink of collapse because of an alcohol-soaked party in 10 Downing Street…
…I would have said, “Yes, that’s probably going to happen.”
