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.

Yesterday was a busy day

My wife had a good day yesterday.  Last year, the children had not got her a card, this year, things were better as she got flowers, presents and a card. In work today, I have talked to other mothers and some had a great day, others not so much.  After my wife got her card we went to the Red Dog for breakfast and later had an amazing lunch at The Three Horseshoes. On getting back after lunch, she got her flowers and the children gave her the present they had got.

I had to miss the football as lunch was a late lunch but after, we went to see some friends and I got to watch some of the highlights of the victory of Arsenal against Crystal Palace.  I think that Palace were insane to fire Patrick Vieira before the match as with him in charge, the result may have been different with him being a former player.  We are now 20 points ahead of The Scum and eight points clear of The Team That Rhymes With City.  And with each game, I am actually becoming more nervous.   

Stand By Me

It has been an eventful twenty four hours. Last night, my wife and I watched Lucy Porter who was at the Colchester Arts Centre. She was great and watching her talk about being middle aged and her past put things in perspective for both of us. The music before the show was soundtrack’s that we grew up with. If anyone has not watched her I would recommend doing so, especially if you are above the age of 40!

During this, she talked about the film Stand By Me. I remembered bits of it from when I had watched it in the past, my wife had never seen it. So when we got back from seeing our parents, we watched it. My Mum had not seen the kids this year. She was meant to see them at New Year’s, but that did not happen as she had declined to see us. Things have been busy since then and while I saw her last weekend, today was the first time in a while. She told them about what was going on in her life, which is quite a bit as she has been spending her retirement keeping her mind and body very active. My parents-in-law have not seen the kids for a while as well, having just come back from being abroad. My kids noted that their grandfather was being more affectionate than normal and my son loved getting a late birthday present.

When we got back, through terrible weather, after resting and eating my wife and I watched Stand By Me. I could remember bits, but not much, so really it was like watching it after seeing a trailer (I tend to only watch trailers of films I am not going to see, or of films after I have seen them). It is odd watching a film about people who would grow into straight white men, and I am not sure such a film would be made now, but it has to have no diversity considering where and when it was set. I have lost touch with most of my friend group from back then, but that was my fault. I will have to message one to see how he is.

Cocaine Bear

What an interesting film. The plot has a few holes, but as a gore fest with humour, this is great. I feel it balances humour and horror very well, and although the film has a few issues, this may become a classic along the lines of Braindead. 

Fulham 0 Arsenal 3

The weekend was tiring. I had a full day at work on Saturday, which in a way was a more tiring day than a normal day at work due to the way the day was set up.  In addition to this, I went to visit my mother yesterday.  She rightly got annoyed that I kept looking at my phone (another Twitter argument) but I did start to behave and stopped doing that. 

Watching Match of the Day was odd considering that there was no commentary and no analysis.  While there are those on the right who said it was better, it was not.  I did watch the highlights of the Arsenal game on Sky yesterday and it was great to see another victory.  Of course, I am getting more nervous as the season goes on as I pray that we will win the league.  Based on the highlights, the game was fairly one sided, but we need to keep winning against all teams and seeing us win was one of the many highlights to the weekend.  

I did get to spend some time with my son which was great.  My daughter who had friends round who apparently said that I was quite good looking when I was younger.  However the downside was that they also said that I aged very badly! 

Hitler and the right wing Nazi party killed those who were left wing

There is an argument, spread by those on the right that the National Socialist German Workers' Party, i.e. the Nazi Party were socialist. But they were not. Looking back on the interwar history of Germany, while they initially spoke against big business, they were against the works of Marx. I had posted on this back in 2017 but back then, I had forgotten the support that Nazi Germany gave to fascist Spain in the Spanish Civil War with The Condor Legion, support recorded by Pablo Picasso on canvas when it comes to the bombing of Guernica.

In addition to the support for the right wing forces in Spain, once in power, Hitler and the Nazi party cracked down on socialists resulting in many being sent to Concentration Camps where they would be allocated red triangles to distinguish them from other prisoners. I have seen threats against those on the internet who criticise the far right on the internet, a concern as if given the chance, I am sure they would lock people like me up for my political views.

This has been brought up again due to a right wing revisionist. I may be being unkind as they may not be aware of history as opposed to trying to rewrite it.

King Charles comes to town

King Charles came to town yesterday (or rather the city). My son was at school, but my daughter, being at the Sixth Form College, saw him as she waited in the centre and he passed by her. She, and her friends, waved at the snipers who were in town as well.  She wore a burger king crown and waved a flag. I found all this out when I had sent a text on the family group chat asking if she had been with the banner crowd or had been using the megaphone.

 

Many do not like the King, but I admire his views on Climate Change and also the deportation of refugees which he has has to remain silent in now he is our monarch. I do wish he had spoken out about the racist double standards his daughter-in-law had been subjected to however.

Issues about racism and refugees were in the news today thanks to a tweet by Gary Liniker. I think that a better choice of words would have made things clearer, but there is no doubt that the language used about asylum seekers is designed to incite hatred and has resulted in lots of the electorate blaming them for many issues in our nation.

In PMQs, the government reminded us how many refugees were taken in from Ukraine, Hong Kong and Afghanistan. But the fact remains that many crossing the channel to get to the UK, have no safe and legal route to get here. It would be easy to process applications in France rather than housing asylum seekers in hotels in the UK, and once there is a decent safe and legal route, then we can deport those crossing the channel. Instead many are now blaming this issue for the way the government have underfunded the NHS (and other public services).

Needless to say, issues of asylum and refugees were brought up in PMQs, the government who has failed to deport failed asylum seekers has been stating that it is Labour that are in favour of open borders. One thing that many Labour supporters will not like, will be the way that when this is sorted out when Labour come to power, deportations will take place.