It wasn’t lying or support for a sexual predator that caused Boris's downfall but his inability to deliver a Tory victory
It’s not often that I get a prediction wrong. In my blogon June 7 I wrote that ‘It is Doubtful Whether Johnson Will Survive to the End of June’. I was one week out and he has still managed to hang on as Prime Minister until September although, sad to say, he has been forced to move his wedding celebration from Chequers to some other venue!
The signs of course were clear when 41% of his own MPs, including 75%of his backbenchers voted that they had no confidence in him. It was only a matter of time before he came a cropper and lied again.
Tory MP after Tory MP proclaimed on the BBC that Johnson had ‘let the Tory Party down’ by his continual lying, his defenceof sexual predator Chris Pincher (‘Pincher by name, Pincher by nature) to say nothing of his fondness for granting favours (from the public purse) to his latest mistress see e.g. hereand here.
These are the same vermin, (Aneurin Bevan) who were quite happy to tolerate Johnson’s lyingover £350 million pounds a week to the NHS if Brexit went through. The same Johnson who liedabout securing £120K for his mistress Jennifer Arcuri at the Greater London Authority when he didn’t disclose his relationship to her. The same Johnson who was himself accusedof being a sexual predator and ‘handsy’ when he groped Spectator journalist Charlotte Edwards.
This is the same Johnson who saidBlack people had ‘water melon smiles’ and called them ‘picanninies’. The same Johnson who regrettedthat British imperialism was no longer in charge of Africa.
Then there is his racist and anti-Semitic novel 72 Virgins excerpts from which have been posted here. The late David Graeber posted some of his choicest quotes such as comments about the ‘Jewish cabal who run the American media complex’.Passages such as
‘Maybe there was some kind of fiddling of the figures by the oligarchs who ran the TV stations (and who were mainly, as some lost no time in pointing out, of Jewish origin).’
Imagine if Jeremy Corbyn had said half these things, yet it was Corbyn not Johnson who was accused by the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland and the rest of the Presstitutes of ‘anti-Semitism’
Unsurprisingly, the book is racist, classist, and sexist, and @VirginsJohnson features some of its most disturbing passages. There’s references to “Islamic headcases” and “Islamic nutcases”; Arabs are described to have “hook noses” and “slanty eyes”; a boy is called “coffee-coloured”; and there are mentions of “pikeys” and people who are “half-caste”.
Women are described as having “lustrous eyes”, “long legs”, “good teeth and blonde hair” – there’s even “a mega-titted six-footer” – presumably because that’s all we’re good for.
See Lies, damned lies: the full list of accusations against Boris Johnson for some but by no means all of the filth and lies spewed by Johnson such as the accusation that drunken Liverpool fans had been responsible for Hillsborough.
The charge sheet is endless. All of this was well known by the ‘honourable’ MPs who nominated him. But it was precisely his ability to lie and dissemble which appealed to them when he stood for the leadership of the Tory Party and Prime Minister.
The professions of outrage should be taken with a heavy pinch of salt. But it wasn’t just Tory MPs or lying editors who should take the blame.
The Metropolitan Police chose to fine him for just one breach of the lockdown rules. They have refused to investigate at least 3 other breaches, just as the Durham Police have now let off Starmer. The Met have also turned a blind eye to the repeated acts of corruption by Johnson. That is the answer to those who talk about the 'rule of law'. The criminal law is only meant to apply to us not them.
Of course if the Met had been doing their duty they would have prosecuted Johnson and Matt Hancock for gross negligence manslaughter for decantingthousands of old people with COVID into care homes with the result that at least 20,000 people died. Even the High Court found that it was unlawful.
Rishi Sunak and Sajid David resigned, not because Johnson is a liar but because they are intent on ensuring that a regime of super austerity is imposed on the working class in order to pay for the corrupt COVID contracts that they handed out to their mates.
What is however remarkable is that in the midst of this crisis Starmer has nothing to say. He is relying on the Tories collapsing of their own accord. Labour is now in the lead in the opinion polls but it has nothing to do with the actions of the Labour Party or Starmer himself.
I will therefore make another prediction. The Labour lead is likely to disappear into thin air once a new Tory leader is elected. Anyone who thinks they can rely on the Labour leadership or Starmer to reverse Tory cuts, energy price rises or any of the other attacks on the working class is living in another world. It is, as Irish Republicans say, ‘ourselves alone’ who will find a solution to this crisis.
The real question though is what we are going to do about the energy price increases. In October 2021 they stood at £1,278. Last April prices rose by 54% to £1,971 per year. In October the price cap on annual bills is now predictedto increase to £3,244. In other words a rise of 154% in one year.
The energy price rises are completely avoidable. We could follow the example of France which has just nationalised EDF but that would be against Tory ‘principles’ of transferring wealth from the poor to the rich.
The answer is very simple. People can join a Can’t Pay Won’t Pay campaign from this October, not least because for millions of people it will literally be a case of Can’t Pay. The windfall tax of Sunak is a drop in the ocean in comparison.
What is also clear is that the useless Sir Keith will go along with any and everything that the Tories will do. Sir Keith has torn up the 10 pledges he stood for election to Labour’s leadership on, including his pledge to take into public ownership the privatised utilities.
It is no wonder that Starmer has removed the 10 pledges from his website!
Power is in our hands if we chose to exercise it.
Tony Greenstein