Privileges Committee 22nd March.

[Beebo]

Has a parliamentary committee ever been so anticipated?
What ever happens the televised footage should be revealing. Harman will be laser focused with her questions. Johnson will avoid direct answers but he has less chance of getting away with that tactic over a 4 hour hearing.
My hope is that Johnson completely soils himself. The fear is that he survives and spins it as a great victory.
Any way. Grab your popcorn, it’s going to get interesting.

 

[fozy tornip]

Who needs justice when you've got spectacle and popcorn?

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

His defence seems ot that he is too stupid and unobservant to notice what was going on and what the rules were


Not sure that is the hill I would choose to die on
more like a good hill to retreat from

 

[newfhouse]

 

[newfhouse]

 

[icowden]

If only he had been close to the people who made up the rules, then he might have known what they were.

 

[matticus]

'The identity of the official whose alleged responsibility for this hypothetical oversight has been the subject of recent discussion is not shrouded in quite such impenetrable obscurity as certain previous disclosures may have led you to assume, but, not to put too fine a point on it, the individual in question is, it may surprise you to learn, one whom your present interlocutor is in the habit of defining by means of the perpendicular pronoun.'
- Sir Humphrey Appleby

 

[Xipe Totec]

Quite surprised that Johnson's defence didn't focus on blaming whichever backstabbing lefty civil servant redacted the words 'these restrictions apply to them, not us' from the final draft of The Rules.

Academic, I think - whatever sanctions the Privileges Committee apply, I suspect a Tory Party which objectively owes its 80-seat majority to Johnson and his lies may well be a bit reluctant to chuck him under the bus, for a number of reasons.

 

[Deleted member 49]

Boring.....nothing will happen.Trial by the same people who your lining their pockets.

 

[Beebo]

So far so boring.
He is just saying no rules were broken and Number 10 is very small so everyone was crammed together anyway.

 

[Poacher]

Is the greased piglet lying under oath? Surely not!

 

[Beebo]

He’s either lying or simply doesn’t believe the rules relate to him, or what hoops we were jumping through during lockdown.
My work had no meetings, no leaving parties, no social events for over 18 months.
Boosting moral wasn’t essential work purposes.
We had no one in our garden for months, let alone in our house.
The committee are slowly turning up the heat and Johnson is getting more agitated.

 

[Beebo]

It also transpires that he never actually sought reassurance about potential rule breaking from anyone actually familiar with the rules.

So constantly saying he’s been reassured that no rules were broken was a completely worthless statement.

 

[multitool]

He's probably going to say that the problem is he didn't really know what the rules were because when he was laying them down in Parliament he wasn't listening

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

'The identity of the official whose alleged responsibility for this hypothetical oversight has been the subject of recent discussion is not shrouded in quite such impenetrable obscurity as certain previous disclosures may have led you to assume, but, not to put too fine a point on it, the individual in question is, it may surprise you to learn, one whom your present interlocutor is in the habit of defining by means of the perpendicular pronoun.'
- Sir Humphrey Appleby

Thanks for specifying the speaker
until you did I was uncertain whether it was Sir Humphrey or Johnson