Africa-Press – Lesotho. It took one full year for the House of Commons Privileges Committee, with a majority of Tory members, to complete its investigations into and submit last week its report about the Boris Johnson partygate scandal and whether the former PM had deliberately and repeatedly misled the House that all Covid rules applying to the common man had been adhered to by No.10 Downing Street.
Footage of a large group of Boris Johnson ‘look-a-likes’ holding a party outside Downing Street.
P – Metro. co. uk Among the evidence gathered, was a statement from a No 10 official that there was a “wider culture of not adhering to any rules” in the building.
The official added that birthday parties, leaving parties and end of week gatherings “all continued as normal” during the pandemic. The former prime minister resigned as an MP last week after receiving an advance copy of the report, angrily accusing the Privileges Committee of bias.
To his utter discomfiture, few in the Tory party had the cheek to back his stance; the Commons, forced to a vote by Labour MPs, condemned the former PM resoundingly by 354 votes to 7 with some 118 Tories, including party seniors like Theresa May, voting for the report’s findings.
Mrs May urged her fellow MPs to vote in support of the report “to uphold standards in public life, to show that we all recognise the responsibility we have to the people we serve, and to help to restore faith in our parliamentary democracy”.
PM Rishi Sunak was conspicuously absent from the proceedings and slammed for cowardice. A shameful though entertaining chapter of arrogant disregard of rules, a feeling of boundless unaccountability and irresponsibility, and a sense of superiority by a numerical House majority comes to an end in Westminster.
Those few solitary souls who hold that Mauritius is a Westminster-model of democracy would have had ample time to dwell on those events and the statement by Tory Commons leader, Ms Mordaunt, that “the integrity of our institutions matter” or the more general Tory feeling that “trust had to be restored” after those inglorious episodes by their former flamboyant leader.
The SST strikes again
ASP Jagai, who had accepted an invitation, cleared by the Commisionner of Police (CP), to appear personally on the Top FM talk show ‘Radar Lepep’ with anchorperson Mervind Beetun, to go over and perhaps polish his image and that of the Special Striking Team (SST) he heads, came surprisingly accompanied by two private lawyers and a dozen of SST personnel who managed to enter the building and the studio without any clearance.
It later transpired that a bunch of strongmen allegedly accompanying the two pro-bono lawyers threatened the journalist during a coffee break. A CCTV recording of those events was released by Mr Beetun and has gone viral.
Controversies have raged about the need for ASP Jagai (Ashik and not Rashid as he stressed) requiring lawyers and a dozen or more SST officers for a civilised solo radio chat or the behaviour of the retinue present there.
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