The row over the refurbishment of No 10 shows no sign of abating. The Sunday Times covers it again at length this week with some more details emerging. It looks like some of his 'aides' have been speaking to the press and have apparently been telling them he can't get by on less than £300,000 a year and one of them saying, “The bottom line is that he can’t afford to be prime minister.” This is said to be someone loyal to him. The truth is that neither can we.
Another one said, “Lots of people wanted Boris to just come clean and get everything out there quickly, but he won’t do that. His stock response on anything to do with his personal life is ‘Don’t answer the question’.”
The Sunday Times says, "The combination of these two facts leaves the prime minister engulfed in a swirling mess where the public and private overlap. Senior Tories say the affair has shined a light on Johnson’s financial difficulties and the chaotic way he runs his Downing Street team — and opened rifts at the heart of government."
The paper also claims that party treasurer Ben Elliot paid for Johnson’s personal trainer, Harry Jameson, who charges £165 an hour. and even for a personal chef for the prime minister after he was hospitalised with the coronavirus last year. Elliot apparently denies both claims, but then he would wouldn't he?
We also learn he wanted someone - a Tory donor - to pay for a nanny for his son!
On the BBC website their political editor Laura Kuenssberg has what must be a first for the corporation with any British prime minister with a piece entitled, "Boris Johnson: What is the PM's relationship with the truth?"
What is the Laura Kuenssberg’s relationship with the truth? - BBC News https://t.co/g9IeBAygrS
— Richard Barfield (@rjbarfield1) May 2, 2021
His complex and usually distant relationship with reality is discussed at length with a former minister, once close to him apparently, telling Kuenssberg: "The problem is that it's becoming clearer that the PM treats facts like he treats all his relationships - utterly disposable once inconvenient."
He also seems to be back pedalling away from his own campaign promises, with these comments:
"This source, and several others, told me the prime minister has a "deep dislike of being accused of lying". Several sources have even suggested that during the 2016 Brexit campaign he was nervous about the now infamous promise, plastered on the side of his battle bus, to spend the £350m a week the UK sends to the EU "to fund the NHS instead".
"He was also understood to be unhappy about the campaign's claims about Turkey's proposed entry to the EU, and the potential impact on immigration."
Well who knew?
"Yet what's suggested time and again is that the prime minister's attitude to the truth and facts is not based on what is real and what is not, but is driven by what he wants to achieve in that moment - what he desires, rather than what he believes. And there is no question, that approach, coupled with an intense force of personality can be enormously effective."
That's' the problem isn't it? He said those things in order to get a yes vote in 2016 but now wants us to forget he said them and we can't.
I suppose if things improve massively and life in this country is transformed beyond anything we've known for decades, he may be forgiven for using lies to achieve it, but I really don't see that happening. He isn't leading us to the promised land but to disaster and to do it with a lot of false promises and downright barefaced lies is unforgivable. And he will never be forgiven.
Despite it all he remains ahead in the polls and is seen as a better PM than Kier Starmer:
Two polls — Oppinium for Observer and Focaldata for Sunday Times — show Tory lead narrowing...though @BorisJohnson still easily beats @Keir_Starmer on the leadership/competence/likeability stakes pic.twitter.com/oPIRRVnN2e
— Peter Foster (@pmdfoster) May 2, 2021
His lead is narrowing so it may be that voters will finally come to their senses but I wouldn't bank on it happening very quickly.
I am afraid the people get the government they deserve and if you vote for a liar you get lies don't you?
