BoJo banished - Liz Truss down. Is Rishi next for the toaster? **threadbans in OP**

The bottle was snuck into the room by Labour and the liberal media elite.

People are going to be so disappointed when they find out the real reason why "Dick" is trending this evening!

I think they've moved the conversation on from that. A couple of weeks ago before the sue gray report, if he was fined, he was out. But I think that was then and this is now. By the time we find out if HE was fined, I think it'll have blown over.

Of xourse it's conjecture. I've been careful so say "I think" because that's where we are.

I think the full sur gray report would have sunk him a few weeks ago if it landed all Al once (a knockout blow). But in the meantime i think the conversation has changed. Now the conversation is moving to whether he went back to work after the parties, not whether he attended them at all. I really think the goalposts have moved and the clock is ticking on.

What could the sue gray report say now that hasn't already been established? He was at parties, there was drink and snacks, there are photographs, witnesses, sue gray can't reveal anything new as he's contending he was going back to work after the parties and that makes it alright. You and I know that's not really the point, but that's what the conversation is becoming. Muddied waters to the point that nothing is really true or false and the whole thing keeps moving on - to the next crisis.

You're obviously right that we'll have to wait and see what actually happens.

Ah, I know it's not an attack. I acknowledge its conjecture. I'm just giving an opinion based on the evidence we have.

He's going to argue that the parties were actually a kind of work meeting. They were essentially a kind of meeting with snacks and wine. He'll claim he didn't mislead the house on purpose. He'll say he was ill advised. He won't quit because he misled the house because he'll agrue he didt mislead the house. I'd bet the farm on that point.

Whether the MPs force a conference vote and oust him, I'm much less confident but I doubt either will happen.

Well, that's what he's going to do. According to the reports doing the rounds today. That story is out for a couple of weeks now. These things don't really accumulate as i wpudl hope. Its like they're being poured into a leaky bucket and the way all the revelations are spaced out allows the bucket to never fill. If it all came at once at the beginning, the bucket would have overflowed and Johnson would have resigned. But the time its dragging on means the bucket is emptying and hasn't overflowed yet anyway. The suitcase story is old news now. Don't rely on it to count against Johnson as much as it did when the story broke originally.

Playing devil's advocate: Why does the method of transporting the booze make any difference? A suitcase full of booze is a funny image, but what's humour got to do with it his argument thst it was a work meeting with booze and snacks?

As an aside, was it a carry on suitcase or a check-in suitcase? Big suitcase, big meeting.

The guy was sent out mid "work meeting" to get more booze because they had drank all the original meeting refreshments. That is important to what kind of meeting. Also a suitcase rather than bag makes it look like you had something to hide.

The humour matters because those kinda sound bites work. It's like Corbyns "make June the end of May" or Romney's "binder full of women". Catchy stuff is remembered better.

I really just think you will say anything to play it down as if convincing a few lads on Boards that this isn't a big deal is gonna help sort this mess.

Your not the first to try.

I think the problem for those what want to get rid of Johnson is that partygate wasn't 'bad' enough to get rid of him. Someone who I know despises him said they'd rather see him go for something more serious, and I think that's fair comment.

It was Sky News in collusion with The Mirror (I see Pippa Crerar making regular appearances on Sky's nightly paper review of late) that kept this story going for weeks, by tactically drip feeding a new photo or whatever, just when the story was beginning to die down to keep it alive. The general public aren't that stupid that they can't see what's going on. To have Beth Rigby who was herself suspended from Sky News for breaking covid rules cover this story just goes to show that Sky News think they can manipulate public option, but they can't, not to the degree they wish anyway.

As for what happens now, I think Johnson still holds sway with the general public by and large, and nothing much has actually changed in that respect. I think it would be a great mistake from the Tory's point of view to get rid of him before the next GE. Covid has hugely affected his premiership and that seems to be over now. I think he should be given a chance post Covid, based on his undoubted electoral success for his party that he had a lot to do with.

I would rather see Johnson ousted via a GE than it happen as a result of the antics of the UK media.

There were people at the parties who would not have been on the premises for work reasons, yes. We know that people who work in the adjacent, but physically and organisationally separate, Cabinet Office were invited to attend, and did attend, the parties. Those people would not normally be in 10 Downing St. And we know of other people who did not work either in the Cabinet Office or in 10 Downing St; Carrie Johnson attended at least two (she organised one) and the Johnson's interior decorator, Lulu Lytle, was at at least one. And of course there may have been others that we don't know about yet.

But, as others have pointed out, the issue is not really the parties themselves. If Johnson had fessed up when the allegations were first made, this would all have blown over long ago, with only modest political damage to Johnson. The issue is the months of systematic, wilful, persistent, lying to Parliament and to the party, and the pressure put on party colleagues to pretend to believe the lies, and even to join in propagating them. If Johnson does go over this, it won't be because he held lockdown parties; it will be because by lying about them he has lost the confidence of Parliament, without which his political authority is destroyed and he cannot govern effectively. There's a constitutional expectation that minister who lie to Parliament must go; this isn't a rule that was created for Boris Johnson, and there is certainly no reason to make an exception for Boris Johnson.

The argument that the lies were about a relatively minor matter doesn't stack up at all; if the PM will lie to Parliament when he could so easily tell the truth and survive, that points to an extremely cavalier attitude to lying to Parliament; he will lie for even modest advantage or short-term political convenience. That makes matters worse, not better.

All this is entirely Johnson's fault because, of course, he didn't have to lie. He chose to, repeatedly. In so far as others have manoeuvred Johnson into this position in an attempt to get rid of him, they were only able to do so because they knew him well enough to know that, put in this position, he would lie. They haven't created the character flaws which show him to be unfit for office; they are merely exposing them to the public gaze. Johnson always had these character flaws; he was always unfit for office.