A must listen to https://t.co/vTpMYifzPy
— pinkmiss (@LynneCampbell5) October 8, 2022
Tag: British Prime Minister
It’s time cowardly Johnson was brought to book
He’s not the first stinker to be British prime minister but he’s the first to be publicly caught out, then press on refusing to answer any accusations
Follow this link to find out more: https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3296791530400598&id=100002093504519&set=a.439170419496071&source=48https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3296791530400598&id=100002093504519&set=a.439170419496071&source=48
ON MONDAY Boris Johnson told Britain it is “a moral duty” to reopen schools. Given his record you could be forgiven for thinking you had misread his injunction and it should have read “amoral”. In his case “amoral” is more appropriate.
It must be the first time he has used the word “moral”. He’s the last person to tell people what their moral duty is. His attempt to stand on the high ‘moral’ ground produced sniggers. Last year Dorothy Byrne, head of Channel 4 News, in a speech at the Edinburgh Festival, asked: “What do we [in news] do when a known liar becomes prime minister?” In the course of her speech she called him a “coward” for dodging interviews in the run-up to December’s general election. Other journalists have referred to Johnson’s record; leaving wives for younger women an fathering unspecified number of children, at least one of which he outrageously tried to deny in court.
Of course he’s not the first stinker to be British prime minister but he’s the first to be publicly caught out, then press on refusing to answer any accusations. The smell rising off his rotten government grows more rancid by the week. His appointment to the peerage of his brother and a Russian crony, son of a KGB man, who invites him to weekend parties produced a reaction between disbelief and contempt but Johnson’s not a pioneer in this matter. Lloyd George held the Lords in contempt – ‘500 people chosen from the ranks of the unemployed’, now 800 – and proceeded to sell peerages since his rival Asquith controlled Liberal party funds: a knighthood £10,000, a peerage £50,000, with Lloyd George and his agent Maundy Gregory creaming off a fortune. The result was the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925. (It didn’t work). Lloyd George managed to keep the scandal quiet by giving hereditary peerages to the editors of all the main British papers.
The difference with Johnson is that he doesn’t even try to keep his activities secret. His colleagues have now begun to copy his tactics. Since this government took office, the list of grown exponentially, aided substantially by the government’s panic actions during the pandemic. Last week we discovered they had shelled out £152 million on masks that are no use to a company which never produced masks or any PPE; money down the drain, like Matt Hancock’s tracing app that never worked. Contracts worth millions have been handed out with no tendering process to friends of ministers and advisers, sometimes people with no business experience at all in the area they won the contract. Now there’s a proposal from ‘Honest Bob’ Jenrick which, according to experts, will wreck the planning process and produce a developers’ charter.
By a strange coincidence developers have given the Tory party £11m since Johnson became prime minister last July. Much of the chicanery is being challenged by Jolyon Maugham QC through his Good Law project but that will take years to resolve. In the meantime Johnson and his Brexit government sail on invulnerable with their 80-seat majority. Which brings us back to Dorothy Byrne and her speech. Johnson cancelled interviews with Channel 4 News and ministers don’t appear. However, Byrne says: “If we don’t all agree that truth has a primacy in democratic debate, where do we end up?” That’s the nub of the matter. As Byrne says, no-one has told her that what she said wasn’t true but other editors don’t say it, maybe for fear of retribution. Again, Johnson and his government boycotted the BBC’s Today programme until the pandemic broke because they were asked hard questions. However, if you don’t disclose Johnson’s amoral behaviour, his lies, his cheating with statistics, his cronyism, and instead treat him as a prime minister worthy of respect and deference, then you become an accomplice to his frauds and charlatanry.
With many thanks to the: The Irish News and Brian Feeney for the original story
Conspiracy of Silence? Cummings’ Consultancy Paid Vast Sums to Vote Leave AI Firm – Sputnik International
Boris Johnson posed with military chiefs and the jokes wrote themselves
Boris Johnson
✔@BorisJohnson
Today I met with military chiefs at 10 Downing Street. Thank you all for the selfless work that you do to protect our great nation.
3,320 people are talking about this
On the face of it, probably quite a well-meaning tweet, but also a little bit Trumpian. ‘Our great nation’ – do we say this now?
The last few years have proved that we’re anything but.
Regardless, in the aftermath of the photo, the internet had a grand old time of doing what we Brits are actually good at, making fun of things. Here are some of the best responses;
Timbola
@Tim4118
Replying to @ThePoke
Johnson first reserve for Village People reunion tour.
17
9:59 AM – Sep 20, 2019
Twitter Ads info and privacy
See Timbola’s other Tweets
James Felton
✔@JimMFelton
Pro-tip: Nothing screams “not a coup” like using your time after you’ve shut down parliament to pose for photos surrounded by military generals in Number 10. https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1174682159673724929 …
Boris Johnson
✔@BorisJohnson
Today I met with military chiefs at 10 Downing Street. Thank you all for the selfless work that you do to protect our great nation.
1,802 people are talking about this
This one gets to the point pretty quickly…
Rt Hon Sir Peter Mannion KCB MP@PeterMannionMP
See Rt Hon Sir Peter Mannion KCB MP’s other Tweets
And you know it’s bad if Alistair Campbell is getting involved on a personal level
Alastair PEOPLE’S VOTE Campbell
✔@campbellclaret
I don’t know them all but the ones I know think you’re a clown and Brexit is a threat to national security https://twitter.com/borisjohnson/status/1174682159673724929 …
Boris Johnson
✔@BorisJohnson
Today I met with military chiefs at 10 Downing Street. Thank you all for the selfless work that you do to protect our great nation.
1,459 people are talking about this
We hope Armando Ianucci was watching…
The Reds ☭@Red_UnderTheBed
Looks like a fucking shite remake of the Death of Stalin.
The feller on the left is intense isn’t he https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1174682159673724929 …
Boris Johnson
✔@BorisJohnson
Today I met with military chiefs at 10 Downing Street. Thank you all for the selfless work that you do to protect our great nation.
22 people are talking about this
Plus, is it even political satire without a Blackadder reference?
Jeremy Newman@jwgn
See Jeremy Newman’s other Tweets
The Prime Minister was meeting with military generals to announce an added £2.2 billion boost to the UK’s defence budget, and this was one of many tweets where Boris showcased himself meeting with and admiring the armed forces this week. After the hospital debacle, which he has tried to pass of as a good thing. We’re sure Brexit has nothing to do with us having to spend more to protect ourselves. Nothing at all.
HT The Poke
With many thanks to: Indy 100 and Alexandra Haddow for the original story
More: British rapper goes viral after performing live with Boris Johnson’s ‘decapitated head’
More: Protestor reveals what really happened to Boris Johnson in Luxembourg
The Long Kesh Hunger Strike, in which 10 IRA/INLA volunteers died, was called off at 3:15pm on 3rd October 1981.
The Brendan Duddy Archive’s ( Part 1) -1975 Cease-fire !
NEW: The 1981 Hunger strike documents now include the full text of the ‘Red Book’ outlining in detail the progress of the secret negotiations between the IRA and the British government to end the Republican hunger strike of 1981. They also include a transcript of the text.
The selected documents are taken from the three main periods during which Brendan Duddy secretly acted as an intermediary between the British government and the IRA. The first was in the early and mid 1970s when Duddy acted as intermediary during a series of contacts over the release of hostages and the ending of hunger strikes. This contact culminated in the long IRA ceasefire of 1975 during which British government and Provisional Republican representatives held a series of formal meetings in Duddy’s house in Derry. The archive includes his diaries of negotiation in 1975 and 1976 as well as many handwritten and typed messages exchanged between the two sides.
In 1980 and 1981 Duddy acted again as intermediary during the Republican hunger strikes. In July 1981 he began to record these contacts, conducted by telephone, in a red hardbound notebook, the ‘Red book’. The handwritten formal messages that were dictated to Duddy over the phone are interspersed with sparse personal comments and notations indicating how these contacts sometimes stretched through the night and indicating the intensity of the tensions at this negotiating intersection.
Between 1990 and 1993 Duddy was again active at this intersection after a new Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Sir Peter Brooke, made the decision to try to incorporate the Provisionals in a political settlement, an effort continued by his successor Sir Patrick Mayhew. Duddy was called upon again to take up the role of intermediary and his archive includes the messages passed between the two sides as well as his own contemporary ‘narrative’ of the intense contacts of 1993. The selected documents highlight the secrecy and tension involved in this communication and negotiation and add significantly to our understanding of this crucial interface between the British state and the IRA.
Dr. Niall Ó Dochartaigh
1975 Cease-fire
We know the Provisionals fear we may be stringing them along, January 1975 Download image
In early 1975 British officials and Republican representatives secretly negotiated the terms of an IRA ceasefire that came into force in February and lasted for most of that year. Most accounts of the ceasefire argue that the British duped the IRA into calling a ceasefire and strung them along in order to weaken them militarily. This message, sent by the British in late January, contains the striking line
‘We know that the Provisionals fear that we may be stringing them along’. It indicates not only that the IRA was aware of this danger even before the ceasefire, but that the British were also aware of this fear on the part of the IRA. The final line reads ‘We are not at this stage able to meet Mr. David O’CONNELL [emphasis in original] himself. But we assume that he is now personally directing the dialogue. Is this so?’ O’Connell was a wanted man at the time. It indicates that even though the British felt it was too sensitive to talk to him directly, they wanted to be reassured that this key figure was personally directing the talks and that the Provisional negotiators had his support. If there was to be a settlement and a permanent end to the IRA campaign his support was essential.
NÓD
(1) A letter from the IRA to the British Prime Minister, January 1975 Download image
The formal and courteous tone of the letter, addressed personally to the British Prime Minister of the time, Harold Wilson, is striking, indicating the desire of the Provisionals to behave in a properly diplomatic way during these contacts. But the letter is striking too for the emphasis on securing ‘an honourable and permanent end to this conflict’. Given the emphasis on the word ‘permanent’ after the IRA ceasefire of 1994, it is interesting to note that the word appears three times in this short message. There is no reference to Irish reunification or the political goals of the Provisionals but the emphasis is placed instead on their ‘sincerity to explore every avenue to secure’ a ‘permanent’ end to the conflict. Duddy’s personal diary for the period indicates intense and prolonged negotiation between the two sides over the twelve points included in this letter.
NÓD
(2) A letter from the IRA to the British Prime Minister, January 1975 Download image
(3) A letter from the IRA to the British Prime Minister, January 1975 Download image
(1) Don’t call us, we’ll call you, February 1975 Download image
With Many Thanks To :Dr. Niall Ó Dochartaigh, The James Hardiman Library.
And also many Thanks to : National University of Ireland Galway.
Related articles
- Irealnds Biggest Sellouts, Adams and Mcguinness (seachranaidhe1.wordpress.com)
- Bid to end hunger strikes revealed (seachranaidhe1.wordpress.com)
- “and ‘Soon’ would have known this” (sluggerotoole.com)
- Rowan, Duddy, Morrison (sluggerotoole.com)
- Deal could have ended IRA hunger strike, says former press officer (guardian.co.uk)
seachranaidhe1 
You must be logged in to post a comment.