The House of Lords

The matter of the House of Lords has come up with the resignation honours list of Boris Johnson. Too many honours went to those who helped him lie over PartyGate, but not all the honours relate to those who support and supported him over his lies.

There have been calls for an elected second chamber. I disagree with this. The House of Lords is there to scrutinise bills. Amongst its members it has judges, doctors, priests, artists and the like. These people have a lot to offer our nation and I want them to be able to serve our country by offering us their expertise. 

I do think that reform is needed. I think that new peers should be picked based on the vote share of parties, that is above a certain threshold and also based on the nations. Also, I think that experts, such as Baron Winston, should continue to be appointed. In order to be accepted, each peer should be accepted by representatives of the parties, the voting power being based on the vote share. 

So based on the last General Election, that would mean that the Conservatives would have around a 43% say in choosing experts, but that a 50% threshold would need to be met for a candidate to be accepted. Lords appointed on a party political basis would be done so by the vote share in each nation. This would mean that based on the latest division, England would have roughly 84% of lords being chosen, Scotland 8%, Wales 5% and Northern Ireland 3%. Of those from Scotland, the SNP would have about 45% of appointees, Labour 19% etc.

As for the resignation honours list, I would keep it, but limit the numbers to, at the most, ten members to the House of Lords. 

I suspect that I will refine my views on this as time passes, but that is my view for now.

Boris Johnson again

First of all, there is the matter of the resignation honours of Boris Johnson from his time as PM. Labour said the list amounted to “rewards for those who tried to cover up rule-breaking”, while the Lib Dems said it was “gongs for Johnson’s Partygate pals” and described it as “corruption pure and simple”.  Listening to BBC Any Questions, the issue of Tony Blair came up.  While there is no doubt that Blair misled Parliament with his dodgy dossier, this was an exaggeration, not an outright lie.  Boris will continue to argue that events which required suitcases of wine to be brought into Downing Street were work related. I am not sure that many others either isolating, or like me working on the front line (though in my case, it was in the trenches just behind the front ones) will agree.

What is also interesting is how Nadine Dorries has quit as an MP, forcing a by-election which will cause harm to Rishi Sunak. Boris Johnson has since done the same after being given the Partygate report, but he claims to have been forced out.  It is a shame that this has happened as a return of Boris Johnson to power would herald even greater support for Labour in the next General Election. 

In summary, Boris Johnson who has finally resigned over PartyGate, has rewarded lots of people for helping him while he decided to mislead Parliament. 

We need another investigation into Partygate

As has been posted before, there are concerns that Sue Gray was biased in her report into Partygate.  I do not think that is the case, but I agree that we should look at things again.

I had thought that the only person to have been fired as a result of this was Allegra Stratton (though technically she resigned). She had not attended the event in question, and when it came to jokes being made in the mock news conference, she was not the only person to be involved.  It later turned out that there was a quiz held at Downing Street, though as you can see from this link, it was claimed that there were no drinks. That claim unravelled when it was seen that there was a bottle of sparking wine present. 

I have since been reminded that there was another resignation, this being Shaun Bailey who resigned after breaking the rules by being at a work party.  

So while I had previously said that the only person to resign was a woman who had not attended a party, it turned out that a black man did so as well after attending one.

Boris Johnson has stated that he had been told that there were no parties. It later turned out that there was a garden event at Downing Street where people were asked to bring their own booze in May.  There had been one before on the 15th of May, but it could be more reasonably argued that although mixing was taking place, it was a work event.  

On the 18th of June, a work event took place with alcohol and a karaoke machine. The following day, the Prime Minister was ambushed with a cake.  While a violation, again I would have to say that this was a silly but more excusable breach of the guidelines. 

The most interesting one is the party of the 13th of November.  The PM had denied that an event took place when asked over a year later, but later it came out that he had attended it (though this may have been for a very short period of time) and the photos came out.

And of course, there was the quiz in Downing Street after all this.   

Yesterday there were people defending Boris Johnson saying that he had not misled Parliament.  Today he admitted he had done so, but did so in good faith.  I doubt that the Metropolitan Police would accept that excuse from someone who is black. 

Considering the lack of people being held accountable for this, I do think that this should be investigated again, and those who advised Boris Johnson that he was not breaking the law should be sacked for incompetence.

Sue Gray and bias in the Partygate report

The right have complained that the Sue Gray report into the parties that Boris Johnson had is biased.  Personally, I think that she was too kind to him.  This has come about as she is to leave the civil service to take up a job with Labour.  

There was a great interview on Radio Four on the Today programme.  Basically, she made no allegations and had not attended any of the parties.  There also is an interim parliamentary report which appears to be worse for Boris Johnson, stating that there is evidence that he knowingly misled MP's over PartyGate. Which means that there is no reason to run the investigation again, even though Boris Johnson has pleaded innocence.  

Boris Johnson lied about the parties he attended.  And from what I can gather, only one person, a woman who had not attended a party, has lost their job over this.  

There were no parties

When asked on the 8th of December, our Prime Minister said that there was no party on the 13th of November. I had mentioned this in my blog at the time as I thought that this might be an issue, I just did not realise how much of an issue it would become. If the Prime Minister had been honest about attending parties when others were told not to, things would have settled down by now. But he lied. And fired a woman for not attending a party and joking about it, with men who were not fired despite doing the same as her.

 

 

I am confused

Can someone explain why a woman who did not go to a party, sorry, cheese and wine business meeting, has to resign because of it when she left before it did not happen? Also, why does a man need an inquiry needed to find out if a party happened (or not) where he lives?

The explanation is that Allegra Stratton was being frivolous during a time when people were facing hardships and dying.  But she was not alone.  The others in the video seem to have kept their jobs.  Were they being serious when they brought up this matter in a private practice session about answering questions?

In addition to this, when this matter was brought up in PMQ's, the Prime Minister accused those doing so of playing politics.  Which begs the question "were Ant and Dec were playing politics when they raised this last night?"  

 

What could be more damaging is the question by Catherine West, which related to other parties.  If parties were taking place when they should not have, then the chance of one being proven to happen is greater.