By Denis Sheehan MIH: Could the Ex-PM begin to pay some price tomorrow for Partygate?
While hospitality and catering businesses were locked down, unable to trade, observing what the then PM and his government declared was in the best interests of public health and safety, he and many of his cohorts partied.
The time of March 2020 to December 2021 saw countless hospitality and catering businesses expire directly due to the constraints placed on them through the lockdowns imposed by No 10 Downing Street. The same address that received more fines for breaches of lockdown that any other in the UK.
The police issued a total of 126 fixed-penalty notices to No 10 Downing Street, five of which were received by the then PM and his wife. Including the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral, 16 April 2021, when two parties were held into the early hours complete with late-night drinking and dancing.
The following day Queen Elizabeth II sat alone in observance of the same rules Downing Street drunkenly flouted less than 24 hours earlier.
Tomorrow that same ex-PM sits before Parliament’s privileges committee to answer questions of his partygate misdemeanours. If that committee finds he misled MPs, it could recommend his suspension from the Commons.
A ban of 10 days or more could trigger a recall petition in his Uxbridge constituency, that could result in him being removed from Parliament. MPs have a free vote on whether to approve any such suspension.
The behaviour of all too many in No 10 Downing Street between March 2020 to December 2021 has resulted in much damage to our country, and our international reputation. A fish rots from the head, and it is high time the one in the dock tomorrow begins to pay some price.
