PMQs

[Bat Macdui]

What happens if he loses the vote of no confidence, does he have to go?

He needs to resign and it automatically triggers a leadership contest and we all start saying things like 'who the fuck is Tugendhat?'

[Bat Macdui]

The bit I'm finding quite funny at the moment is how Johnson was apparently told first thing about the police investigation but didn't actually mention it in his Cabinet Meeting. Presumably he was a bit bothered Rishi would be cross.

[Edith Bacon]

The constant repetition of ‘But he was only there for ten minutes’ is driving me crazy because at no time were we told that it was ok to celebrate with 30 people as long as it was only for ten minutes.

[Mountain Goat]

Pippa Crerar now reporting that the Sue Gray report is expected to be received tonight and published tomorrow ahead of PMQs.

[Bat Macdui]

I'm going to have to tell my new manager that this Wednesday lunchtime team meeting time just doesn't work for me.

[rosy]

Has any politician seen this report from Sue Gray yet? If not, there’s no point in anyone asking questions about it at PMQs.

[Wiggle]

The usual blah, blah, blah of "look how good the government has been on xyz".

[Morganna]

That was disappointing. I should have known it would be a damp squib, I suppose, as clearly they are buying time - although goodness knows how they plan to use it, as they are totally bang to rights - but I had still hoped for something a bit more momentous (not to say entertaining )

[sally maclennane]

And now it's come out that he did authorise the evacuation of that guys animals. I don't want to start up the debate about whether or not they should have been evacuated, the fact is that they repeatedly denied that he authorised it..

Predictably his wife is getting the blame for this, and while I'm not keen on women taking the blame, i can only imagine how the media would have reacted to Tony Blair making a decision like that and how Cherie would have been vilified.

[lazzbo]

She's a twat, he's a twat and they're ideally matched. He's toast once the report comes out, so I hope he enjoyed one of his last PMQs.

[sally maclennane]

Let's hope so (that he's toast!)

[lazzbo]

I have been proven to think too optimistically in the past, it must be said.

[Morganna]

I'm with you in the optimism corner, Lazz. I don't see how he can possibly maintain credibility in the face of so much proof that he's a lying bastard. I'm less optimistic about who would replace him, though. Can the Queen not step in and dissolve parliament or something, so we need a GE? If I were her age I'd be tempted to make a few sweeping changes before I went to the big throne in the sky.

[Bat Macdui]

I'm still in the longer term thinking camp of hoping he survives because the longer he's there, the more damage he does to Tories. The local elections could be a marvellous free for all of cake and wallpaper memes. As opposed to, say, getting Tugendhat in and he then goes full hawk on Putin and pulls in the nationalistic wankers by waving a picture of himself in a tank.

For the geeky, Playbook is good on morning SITREP. With flowchart. I haven't seen a good flowchart since the heady days of Brexit votes.

[Mountain Goat]

That is so good and precious.

[cluefree]

That is a GREAT flowchart. Needs more angry bears as an option though.

[rosy]

Joe Lycett put up a 'redacted report' on Insta

https://www.instagram.com/p/CZO2RoUIcmy/

[Mountain Goat]

Credible take here on the possible reasons for the Met's suspicious behaviour today (just today's suspicious behaviour, not the raft of other stuff...)

https://thesecretbarrister.com/2022/01/ ... nt-report/

[Edith Bacon]

Oh, that’s a very clear and sensible explanation. Thank you for sharing it, Goaty McGoatface.

[Livilla]

Yes - having had the Met trample all over my (regulatory) investigations with their (criminal) boots on in the past, today’s developments didn’t come as such a surprise to me. The surprising part is that they waited so long to announce this - but I can well imagine there’s been some wrangling behind the scenes. In my experience the Met start with the position that any competing investigation should be put on ice until they finish theirs up entirely. Here the position they’ve ended up with is redactions, but the report still published - I suspect the huge public interest in this played a part.