Status: 01/27/2022 03:47 am
The British Prime Minister muddles through the “Partygate” affair. Johnson hasn’t always taken the truth so seriously in the past either. He’s a threat to the political system, critics say.
It’s about refrigerators bought especially for the Downing Street parties, a suitcase full of alcohol that was used to bring supplies to the seat of government, and a garden party that the Prime Minister doesn’t want to have recognized as such. “No one told me it was against the rules and wasn’t a work meeting.” Although a secretary of Johnson invited to this garden party with the addendum, let’s make the most of this glorious evening – in the middle of lockdown.
Johnson’s former adviser Dominic Cummings said he warned the Prime Minister that the garden party was in breach of current regulations. It looks like Johnson could somehow muddle through again. Many conservatives object that there really are more important things to do than deal with these trifles.
Johnson’s penchant for untruths was already evident during the Brexit debate
In the midst of the Downing Street party scandal, it becomes clear that the Prime Minister is not so particular about the truth. This problem runs much deeper than the embarrassing debate over fridges and late-night dancing while the rest of the country was forced to conform to the lockdown.
In 2016, as the debate intensified in the run-up to the Brexit referendum, a bus toured England reading that Britain was paying £350m a week to the EU. The money could be much better invested in the national health service NHS. Johnson liked to appear in these campaigns. And finally had to agree with a reporter that it was only 160 million pounds net, because Great Britain received discounts and subsidies at the time.
Did Johnson fly dogs?
Now there is another accusation of lying in the room, the case is somewhat bizarre. In August 2021, before the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, the British Air Force evacuated numerous nationals and Afghan aid workers. Also a former British soldier who only wanted to be flown out with his numerous dogs. The man had taken care of street dogs. The British military eventually implemented it.
The case caused a heated debate. The accusation: Dogs were flown out instead of people, and the prime minister caused it. In December 2021, Johnson said: “No, that’s complete nonsense. But what I can say is that the evacuation was one of the most significant military operations in 50 years.”
There is now evidence that shows Johnson did indeed authorize the evacuation at the time.
“This is the beginning of tyranny”
It is clear that the government flouts rules and standards, stretches the truth, deceives and distorts facts. There is a system to this – it serves to retain power, destroys the political culture and disintegrates the state, as the journalist Peter Oborne explains in his book “Attack on the Truth”.
Lawyers are alarmed because they recognize the tendency for the government to eliminate control by the judiciary, judges. Among other things, the Justice Department proposed that the government simply ignore objections from the courts. Ellie Cumbo from the British Bar Association:
We fear that acceptance of the rule of law is declining. We see many attempts to undermine this principle that the government is responsible like everyone else. This is the beginning of tyranny.
The government must recognize that it is bound by the same laws as everyone else.