BREAKING NEWS
Following on from the revelations about the senior advisor, Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson is fighting a rear-guard action to avoid sacking him.
Grant Shapps, the Secretary of State for Transport appeared on the Andrew Marr show on the BBC this morning and gave an interview of toe-curling, cringe-worthy, embarrassing shiftiness. He gave the impression of sitting in a warm puddle of his own making. His lack of commitment was noticeable, and he navigated the interview with a complete lack of confidence.
Later on, after the Sunday Mirror and the Observer had run large spreads about the story, the Prime Minister took the daily COVID-19 briefing. This briefing was after Dominic Cummings had been in Downing Street for 5 hours this afternoon.
He fully supported Dominic Cummings and said that we should understand that he was acting on his instincts to protect his family. The rest of us were acting on the Government guidelines that had been constantly pushed down our throats. We didn’t realise that we could have acted on our instincts instead of the law and the guidelines. It was a performance of unbelievable arrogance and he just came across as shifty and devious.
He has obviously made a political calculation as to the damage that the Government will suffer in the short term balanced against his need to keep Dominic Cummings in his post.
Unfortunately for him the consensus is that this will not go away. Already the opposition have written to the cabinet secretary demanding an enquiry, as have the Scottish Nationalist Party. Although the cabinet have shown complete togetherness on the issue, there have already been briefings against Cummings by members of the cabinet. Rank and File Conservative MPs have reported a massive groundswell from their constituents against the decision to support Cummings and have reported this back to the whips’ office. 10 Conservative MPs have written to the cabinet expressing their dismay.
Boris Johnson is rapidly dissipating much of the political capital that he banked following on from Brexit and the general election. He managed to get huge swings in the traditionally Labour supporting North and those gains are in danger of being lost. The North have been traditionally wary of the Conservative party and have regarded them as being the party of the Toffs and city slickers and never for the working class. Their support for the Conservatives is literally going South big time. Either Johnson doesn’t realise that or doesn’t care. He has lost the gains that all the hard work leading up to the election had realised.
The Police Commissioner for Dorset warned that Monday is a Bank Holiday and his force would have major problems policing the lockdown on the beaches as the public will just ignore them after this message from the government.
The blatant hypocrisy is just staggering, and it is no exaggeration to say that with a bank holiday on Monday with the forecast for warm and sunny weather, there is a powder keg waiting to blow.
As they say, this one will run and run. The Sunday Mirror says that there is more to come, and we can see that its sister paper the Daily Mirror will be drip-feeding titbits throughout the week.
The general feeling is that Cummings must have something on the Government and knows where all the bodies are buried. The consensus is that he helped bury them. The civil service is now firmly against Cummings (he has a history of conflict with them) and it is payback time.
Watch this space.
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