Truss and Kwarteng insist the collapse of the pound is nothing to do with their budget. So the fact that it happened the exact moment afterwards is coincidence. The mini-budget that sparked this crisis was one that, at a time when the Government claimed it had no money, took £45billion to give to the very richest people in the country, to “boost the economy”.
Long story short: The Conservatives are finished.
Johnson oversaw a government culture where it was acceptable to laugh at low-paid staff while simultaneously putting their lives at risk. Emanuel Gomes was an outsourced Ministry of Justice cleaner. He died after working for five days with suspected COVID symptoms. A security guard was left “shaking his head” after being laughed at for warning about rule breaking. These are just two – of many – examples of why we should never forget about #PartyGate.
More than 90,000 civil servants are likely to lose their jobs in an attempt by Boris Johnson to find money to ease the cost of living crisis. The prime minister is understood to have tasked the cabinet with cutting staff by a fifth, telling them every bit of cash saved on government spending could be better used elsewhere. Meanwhile, oil companies are making record profits year on year and passing increase costs on to the consumers, yet the Tories have no interest in taxing this income.
New testimony from the Prime Minister’s former chief aide shows how the free press has been bought by the Government. “Newspapers negotiated direct bungs to themselves with Boris Johnson” says Dominic Cummings. These bribes were dressed up as a “special subsidy” arrangement for the mainstream press that began in April 2020 and was called ‘All In, All Together’.
Budgeted at £35 million for the first three months it still appears to be operating two years later.
Neil Parish, Conservative MP, claimed it was an accident while trying to look at tractors. He initially refused to step down when the accusations first emerged, saying he would await the outcome of an inquiry into the matter, but subsequently resigned. It is worth remembering that many forms of pornography are still illegal in the UK, so it is likely that Parish’s actions were not only a breach of governmental regulations, but were in fact a breach of the law.
The National Crime Agency has launched a fraud investigation into a PPE company linked to Michelle Mone and searched the Tory peer’s home. The NCA investigation is into PPE Medpro, a company that secured more than £200m in government contracts near the start of the pandemic without public tender. Mone approached Michael Gove, Lord Agnew and Lord Bethell on behalf of PPE Medpro. All were at the time ministers involved in pandemic procurement.
Michelle Mone’s husband has since admitted having a financial interest in Medpro. Mone recommended the firm for the government’s VIP lane, failing to mention her husband could benefit. Police are now assessing whether criminal offences were committed.
The High Court said the policies failed to take into account the risk to elderly and vulnerable residents from non-symptomatic transmission of the virus, and that there was no evidence that then Health Secretary Matt Hancock addressed the issue of the risk to care home residents of such transmission.
Boris Johnson will forever be known as the only Prime Minister ever to break the criminal law – yet he has tried to stay in office. Police fined him £50 over a No10 birthday party in June 2020, while indoor gatherings were banned, and he could expect three more fines over other events. The Mirror first broke stories of parties in No10 while the nation stuck to lockdown, and wave upon wave of revelations – despite No10’s attempts to style it out – have enraged relatives who could not properly mourn their dead. Police are probing 12 No10 and Whitehall events spanning all three lockdowns and dished out dozens of fines so far.
Labour branded the Towns Fund, a key part of the PM’s levelling-up agenda, ‘blatant pork-barrel politics’ after ministers hand-picked 61 areas to get cash three months before the 2019 election. Many were chosen over towns ranked more urgent by officials. An analysis by The Times claimed all but one were either Conservative-held seats or Tory targets. In 2022 the government unveiled a levelling-up White Paper but Labour branded it ‘recycled’.
Boris Johnson has repeatedly been accused of misleading MPs and failed to set the record straight. As just one example, he has repeatedly made a misleading claim about jobs in Parliament. He said “there are 430,000 more [people] in employment now” than before Covid, but the figure is only payrolls – once self-employed jobs are included it’s actually lower. And, of course, he is accused of misleading MPs when he said he thought a BYOB No10 lockdown party was a work event despite claims he waved away concerns – and when he said all rules were followed completely in Downing Street.