I had a rather impertinent email last Sunday evening reacting to the blog that I had only just posted.
My correspondent demanded to know why I had avoided the main event, namely the continuing Boris psychodrama.
Well, hold on a minute. The wretched Privilege Committee report wasn’t published until yesterday (Thursday) and the debate on its contents isn’t until Monday…Talk about jumping the gun.
Anyway, this column cannot always lead on the top items on the political agenda because its primary purpose is to provide an article for publication in the Forest Journal. They require the copy on a Monday morning, for publication the following Thursday. Were I always to lead on the headline news events, whatever I wrote would, more often than not, be overtaken as the story moved on.
In any event, a few moments use of the search facility on this website will reveal any number of previous posts setting out my views on ‘partygate’.
I remember well the moment that Boris first told the Commons that there were no parties and that rules were not broken. That instant a shudder went down my spine because of the seriousness with which misleading the Commons is treated. Not that I believed that he was lying. Rather, I had no doubt that what he considered a ‘party’ would differ from most people’s definition, and that he would have a more flexible approach what constitutes obedience to rules.
I was prepared to vote against the formation of the Privileges Committee Inquiry. I believed that Sue Gray’s report was sufficient and that it largely exonerated the PM (as I said in this column at the time). Indeed, I was required by a three-line whip to vote against the Committee’s formation. Then, halfway through the afternoon we were stood down. I went to the Whips Office to remonstrate with the Deputy Chief Whip, Chris Pincher (remember him?). I asked how he now planned to vote. He said he would either abstain or vote for the Committee. So, I left in disgust. In the event, the motion was unopposed.
Subsequently, when Boris resigned as PM, I thought the Committee should discontinue its work. I took the view that being slung out of Downing Street was punishment enough.
Now the Committee has produced its full forensic analysis, I will take the trouble to read it in full and to listen to Monday’s debate before finally deciding.
Nevertheless, I do have concerns about the fairness of the Committees proceedings. And my prejudice is that the whole process is redundant, having already achieved its end, namely the removal of Boris from Parliament. Boris, having been shown the tenor of the report, resigned: he has already gone. So, why take a vote on suspending him for a mere 90 days?
The only residual sanction is to deny him a former member’s pass, which seems to me rather ‘petty’.
A number of constituents have emailed to denounce the ‘Blob’, the ‘Remainers’, ‘the Deep State’ and any number of other suspects for their conspiracy to destroy our unblemished hero, Boris.
I have no doubt that there are many who are rubbing their hands with glee as they enjoy Boris’s fate.
But I am also confident that even if there was a conspiracy, which I very much doubt, it achieved nothing: Boris’s downfall was entirely of his own making.
Given his achievements of breaking the deadlock over Brexit, seeing off the pandemic, and marshalling the response to the invasion of Ukraine, it is a great shame but he has only himself to blame