[makomk]

I'm pretty sure that it was the leader of the opposition who was photographed drinking beers with his colleagues during lockdown, and everyone seems to have bought the claim that was work related and therefore legal. Boris and his colleagues were drinking wine. The big reason that he's on his 9th and last political life is increasingly cynical attacks on him over the handling of Covid - for context, one of the most recent ones is accusing him of "wasting" billions of pounds on PPE because the government ended up buying more PPE than it actually ended up using and the price dropped since then. The consequences of undereestimating this or overestimating future availability are of course that doctors and nurses don't have the protection they need, and there were a bunch of earlier attacks on the government for not having a massive PPE stockpike (which would waste billions on PPE that'd just be thrown away). Even the nominally trusted and non-political BBC, which everyone thinks of as a government mouthpiece, ran with this and all the other attack lines, including stuff like lying about what South Korea had achieved with contact tracing to make the UK scheme sound like an expensive failure and Boris's bragging about it like lies. It's impossible to disentangle the anger over the parties from the misinformation people have been fed about the UK's Covid response; they seem closely intertwined in most people's thinking.

To give some further idea of how cynical all this is, the people who actually organised the supposed parties which are supposed to end Boris' career - the vast majority of which he doesn't even seem to have been involved in - are just scapegoats according to the media reporting, including the BBC. And at least one of the claimed parties Boris was involved was actually reported by a major newspaper the day after, back when lockdown was still on and people's relatives were still dying alone in hospital, and no-one seemed to conclude it was obviously an illegal party or even really care back then - and that was the one for Boris's birthday.

[raesene9]

As to your first point, the police have completed an investigation into the beer in question and found no offence committed, so it's not the same as the 12 (IIRC) parties that happened at 10 downing street, currently under investigation by the met.

[pvaldes]

"if it was another..." is political fiction. The fact is that the leader of the opposition wasn't caught partying like a teenager on Ibiza on those days. We'll never know what would happen so lets not assume a different outcome by default.

In any case, this partygate looks to me like an excuse to push the dead weight out of the car when is not useful anymore.

If he were acting as a serious PM at the same time and taking smart actions, the event could be sold easily as 'diplomatic work', hanging up with the people that counts in the public interest and so, and nobody would bat an eye. Nobody. Is just that the videos are too damaging and that damage control train has passed yet.

[netsharc]

> for context, one of the most recent ones is accusing him of "wasting" billions of pounds on PPE because the government ended up buying more PPE than it actually ended up using and the price dropped since then.

Ah, gotta love alternative takes on realities. Nah mate, the expensive PPE contracts went to friends and family of people in government. Ooh sure, these are just "cynical attacks" and in reality Boris and co are competent and non-corrupt people working so hard to serve the UK public.

[makomk]

No, it's in the fine print of some (though not all) of the media reporting - most of the "wasted" billions that made the news headlines in the UK was from the decrease in the market price of the stockpile: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60176283 The next highest was items "unusable in the NHS", which is to say they're functional PPE but don't meet normal NHS standards - most countries ended up intentionally buying a lot of this because medical PPE was in massive short supply and there were similar non-medical items that were a lot better than nothing.

Really, the UK PPE acquistion was unremarkable aside from its speed - the government ended up buying PPE from basically everyone who could sell it to them, just like every other government that was taking Covid seriously. Some of those contracts inevitably went to friends of people in government (they're the party of big business after all) but there's no evidence that played any role in them being awarded the contracts, those people weren't the ones deciding who to award the contracts to, and those contracts don't seem to have fared any worse than any of the other PPE contracts. The speed was also impossible to disentangle from the perception of corruption, a lot of which came from not putting the contracts out to bid as usual.

(There was a really weird - and as it turns out probably illegal - VIP fast lane where people who got referred via an MPs got priority for being evaluated for PPE contracts. The weird thing is that the effective criteria to get onto the fast lane just seem to have been phoning or emailing your MP and pestering them, and that the politicians doing the referrals don't seem to have known about the fast lane. The one friend and donor of a senior member of government who got on the fast lane was also somehow referred by someone else entirely...)

[uxcolumbo]

Johnson will go down as one of the worst PM's in UK's history.

Under his leadership UK suffered immense damage and he dragged down political standards to an almost Trumpian level.

The PPE that was sourced was unusable and the deals were handed out to some Tory mates. Where was the due-diligence?

The police looked into Steir Karmer's beer case and concluded he didn't break the laws.

Compare that to the Tory's multiple parties.

The PM is under criminal investigation for crying out loud.

Why didn't he stop those parties he was at. As the leader he could have easily said this is not on and needs to be stopped now. He sets the tone.

He's a disgrace to the UK and can't lead. He's a lying narcissist who only cares about what's good for him. It's all about 'winning' and not actually thinking about how to improve the lives of people living in the UK.

The Johnson administration is a joke and needs to be replaced asap.

[ben_w]

> I'm pretty sure that it was the leader of the opposition who was photographed drinking beers with his colleagues during lockdown, and everyone seems to have bought the claim that was work related and therefore legal.

Both were photographed with beer.

This is the photo of Keir Starmer: https://metro.co.uk/2022/02/07/keir-starmer-cleared-of-lockd...

The photo of Johnson is not AFAIK in public circulation; the police have it as part of the evidence they are currently investigating, in particular that this was part of his unlawful birthday celebration with his coworkers.

The picture in this article is not, I think, of this incident: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/feb/04/police-have...

[nvarsj]

Starmer was having some drinks after a long day with his coworkers in the office - all was completely above board and vetted by the met police. This was a story thrown out by conservative outlets in a desperate attempt to distract from the real scandals of Boris going to full on Christmas parties that were prohibited under the laws his own government passed.

[uxcolumbo]

This is a good summary of the UK's Prime Minister's character.

Jonathan Pie: 'Boris Johnson Is a Liar' | NYT Opinion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS7kUqKeg_0