Viewpoint Special: Boris Johnson's Resignation.

 

So, this is finally it. After 59 resignations from government, leaving it in absolute tatters and unable to do it's work, after countless lies and denials, and playing the incompetence card, by claiming he forgot, or he didn't know, Boris Johnson is finally set to depart Number 10 Downing Street, probably in the autumn, once the Tory Party has spent a few months trying to find someone willing to take on the severely poisoned chalice that is governing a UK that is falling apart after Boris Johnson's tenure, and while Boris Johnson takes the wallpaper down that he had put up in the flat.

And it all started when Chris Pincher, had to resign as Deputy Chief Whip, because he had groped 2 men in a private members club, the Carlton Club, a known Tory watering hole. He then lost the party whip the next day, despite the fact that hours earlier, the party claimed it would not be removing the whip from him because he had done the right thing in stepping down. Then Johnson's spokesman, a man who gave Comical Ali a run for his money, told journalists that Johnson hadn't been aware of any specific allegations against Pincher before appointing him in February.

The Sunday papers called him out on that lie and as Sunday became Monday, it became clearer that the question wasn't did Boris Johnson know, it was more how much did he know, and when did he stop knowing it?

Tuesday saw the bomb being dropped, when Lord MacDonald, the former permanent under secretary at the Foreign Office, and the EIEIO, published a letter revealing that a complaint was made against Pincher, back when he was at the Foreign Office in 2019, and that Johnson was personally informed about it. Downing Street had to admit that Lord MacDonald's recollection of events was correct, but that Boris had actually forgotten about it when appointing Pincher in February.

Tory MPs, who had already been mutineering in large numbers due to Partygate, were now in open revolt. Letters of no-confidence began flooding in to the 1922 committee. Tuesday evening's 6 O Clock News on BBC1 had to open up with breaking news about the resignations of Savid Javid and Rishi Sunak. Almost a dozen other junior ministers, Parliamentary Private Secretaries, a trade envoy, and even the Solicitor General, resigned their posts with immediate effect. Boris Johnson was on borrowed time at this point, it was just a case of how long he was going to try and hang on.

The Night Of The Long Knives, became a Night and Day of the Long Knives, as Wednesday saw many more Tory MPs, over 30 all told, junior ministers, ministerial aides and trade envoys all quit their government posts with immediate effect. By 10 O'Clock that night, the Tory whip's office had calculated that Boris could only get support from 65 Tory MPs, out of almost 360. The maths were simply against him. Yet Boris vowed to fight on, even sacking Michael Gove in an act that was of pure desperation, as much as it was out of revenge. Michael Gove had told him earlier in the day it was time to go, and a ministerial delegation, including his new Chancellor, who he'd appointed Tuesday Night to replace Rishi Sunak, told him his time was up. And more letters of no confidence arrived at the 1922 committee.

More resignations came on Thursday, bringing the total to 59. The government couldn't even function properly. Finally, Boris came to realise what we had all known. His time in number 10 was up. 2 years and 348 days. That was the entirety of his time as Prime Minister. Theresa May had made it to 3 years and 12 days. Boris Johnson had fallen short. But, them's the breaks.

And yet, the after effects of his time in office will be felt long after he is gone. His departure is without any dignity, just desperation and delusion, clinging on to power even though his own cabinet was trying to oust him in a political coup. What brought him down was his constant lying, trying almost to out-Trump Donald Trump during his tenure as US President. His tenure in office could best be described as a Shakespearian tragedy, written by monkeys on typewriters. He piled lies, on top of lies, on top of lies, and when that failed, he pulled out the incompetence card, claiming to have forgotten, or not known, or not understood. He prefered being thought of as incompetent, rather than admitting his own mistakes.

And despite all the protestations of enough is enough and Boris had gone one step too far, Boris Johnson was a known entity when he entered 10 Downing Street, he was known to be a liar and the same people who were crying out over Boris's lies, were the ones who put him there. The Tory party elected him to replace Theresa May in the first place. Surely, they must have known what they were letting themselves in for. If they did, their protestations this past week ring incredibly hypocritical. If they didn't, then they are as incompetent as Boris is.

They sat idly by and watched him take a flamethrower to the unwritten British constitution, to standards in public life, to their own party, and just let it happen. The Tory party is unfit to govern this country, or a local council, or even a school. Trust and integrity meant nothing to them, so why are they so up in arms about it now? Could it be that they are just protecting their own behinds, because they are seeing the possibility of losing their seats at the next general election, whenever that happens to be?

Trust in politics now is the lowest its ever been and its not hard to see why. Everything from the “oven-ready” Brexit deal that even Boris had to admit was unworkable, through to his painfully slow and inept response to Covid and beyond, have eroded trust in politics as quickly as a heatwave in the Arctic would erode the polar ice cap.

Boris Johnson won a 80 seat majority at 2019's general election, and he basically rendered it moot and useless, through a mixture of hubris, ambition, lies and incompetence. The damage that Brexit has done will take many many years to undo, and that will only begin to happen when someone decides to undo it, something Sir Keir Starmer this past week indicated he wasn't going to do. Scotland is in all likelihood going to break away from the UK, and who knows when Wales will follow suit and leave because it'll be easier to take your own chances than trust in Westminster and a system of governence that has been forever broken by Boris Johnson. And then there's Cornwall and Yorkshire and other areas outside of London and the Home Counties, who have seriously gotta consider whether it's worth staying in a broken system that cannot be repaired or take your chances on the world stage on your own.

Nothing about life after Boris Johnson's premiership looks good. Even the opposition themselves don't look that good. They talked about ousting Boris Johnson as Caretaker PM through a vote of no-confidence in the House. I mean, talk about opening the stable door, after the horse has already bolted and jumped it.

There has been more chaos in Westminster over the last 6 years, than we've seen in all the previous administrations since WW2 ended, and frankly, the country is sick of it. Politics is thought of as boring, but the last 6 years have been anything but boring. We could do with at least a few years boring old politics as usual, so the country can recover from 6 years of chaos that was started by a prime minister who couldn't face what he had done, so he left. 6 years later, the mess is still there, it's getting worse, and nobody seems ready to face the prospect of cleaning it up.

Margaret Thatcher 1935-2013

Margaret Thatcher, the former British Prime Minister from 1979-1990, has died after suffering a stroke.  She was 87.

Her death is not to be mourned, as she was suffering from dementia in her later years, so in many ways for her, it will be a release.  Nor is her death a matter for celebration.  It is a time for reflection.

She entered Parliament in 1959, after winning the safe Conservative seat of Finchley.  In those early years in Parliament, she managed to get a private members bill through, requiring local authorities to hold their council meetings in public.  She was one of the few Conservative MPs to support decriminalising Male Homosexuality, as well as supporting legalising abortion, and banning hare coursing.

Her first real controversy came during her time as Education Secretary from 1970 to 1974, with the abolition of free milk for 7-11 year olds in school, during which time the phrase "Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher" was coined.  It was a policy that hurt her, as she later wrote about it, as it brought "... the maximum of political odium for the minimum of political benefit...".

When Edward Heath lost both elections in 1974, she ended up being elected to replace him, defeating both Heath, and his preferred successor William Whitelaw.  She never expected that she would become Prime Minister though, and she might have been right, had it not been for the Winter Of Discontent over the winter of 1978/79.  James Callaghan's government lost a vote of no-confidence on 28th March 1979 by just one single vote, 311 to 310, and Parliament was dissolved on Saturday 7th April 1979.

That election was memorable in many ways.  It was the first election since 1959 to feature three leaders who had not previously faced a general election as leader of their party.  Neither Margaret Thatcher, James Callaghan nor David Steel had led their party into a general election.  The result was memorable too, and not just for the obvious reason.  The swing to the Conservatives was 5.2%, the largest swing since 1945.  The SNP would rather forget that election though, as they lost 9 of the 11 seats they had previously held.  And of course, Britain had it's first, and so far only, woman Prime Minister.

After that 1979 election she began the process of changing the country, what she thought of as reform and modernisation.  Her first major target was the power of the unions.  But it would be a foreign affairs crisis that would overshadow everything else in her first term.  When Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands on 2nd April 1982, she acted against the advice of foreign policy experts and sent our troops into battle.  Neither Margaret Thatcher nor the Argentinian President at the time, General Leopoldo Galtieri, actually declared war over the Falkalnds, however a war cabinet was set up, the first time that had been done since the end of the second World War. 

74 days after hostilities began, the Falklands War was over.  Britiain had emerged victorious, and the Military Junta that had ruled Argentina since 1976 found their grip on power to be crumbling.  In 1983, elections were held in Argentina, returning the country to democratic rule.  That same year, Mrs Thatcher called her own election, and unsurprisingly, won a landslide.  A majority of 144, the biggest margin of victory since Labour in 1945.

During her second term, the defining moment, was the miners strike that began in 1984 and lasted almost a year.  It was the most divisive of industrial disputes, and the pain some say she caused, is still felt in some communities today.  But the strike was eventually defeated, and miners returned to work.

But she almost did not live to defeat the miners.  But for a few walls, and the grace of whatever god you believe in, we might have been talking about an assassination of Margaret Thatcher at Brighton on 12th October 1984.  A time bomb had been planted in a room in the Grand Hotel in Brighton, just less than a month earlier.  It exploded at 2.54am on October 12th.  5 people died, 31 were injured.  Margaret Thatcher had been the target, but she survivied without injury. 

She privatised many state monopolies, and sold off much of the council housing stock.  She constantly challenged some in the European Economic Community, who were looking for closer integration into a European Union.  Not only was she often on her own in EEC affairs, she was sometimes on her own in Commonwealth matters too, especially South Africa. 

The 1987 General Election saw her majority in the House of Commons cut to 102.  It was to be her last General Election victory. 

What led to her leaving office is open to question.  Most say it was her stance on Europe.  But unquestionably, the Community Charge, or Poll Tax as it became better known by, played a huge part.  It replaced the rating system, which was based on a notional rental value, and the charge was a per person charge, which was the same whether you lived in a £100,000 house or a £1,000,000 house.  The Poll Tax riots became the visual symbol of Margaret Thatcher's growing unpopularity.  She was seen as out of touch, someone who had lost touch with their own background, and had become part of the elite.

She faced Michael Heseltine in a leadership vote in 1990, and whilst she won the vote, she was short of the margin needed to avoid a second ballot.  It was a ballot she wanted to contest, but she was persuaded by her cabinet to not contest the ballot.  It would be the one time, the lady would turn, and it was a turn that would take her out of power.  She resigned on the 22nd November 1990.

Whether you loved her or hated her, her determnination and strength of belief rarely wavered.  She felt she was doing what needed to be done.  Unquestionably, she shifted the political system in this country away from socialism, towards individualism.  She is one of the few politicians that people responded to passionately, either loved or loathed, and in an era, that has been dominated since she left office by grey suits and spin, her Iron Lady persona will continue to make her the most memorable of British politicians, long after today.