[davidjay]

And now it appears that the fragrant Carrie had her friends over a few times. It's all a fucking game to them, isn't it?

Downing Street "took on the atmosphere of a frat house" during lockdown.

[The Weeping Angel]

[Bones McCoy]

Current chat on ConHome.

Poor response to Covid was Tony Blair's fault.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The Harman connection is that a cousin has a child who married this Cabinet Office guy (who in any case would have checked it with someone higher up, most likely).

I'm trying to think how many of my cousins' kids I've even met. I think the answer is one, getting on for 30 years ago. I have no idea if he's married or not.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I'm close to three cousins, but I only know one of their kids at all, really. Met them, but we are miles apart.

[kreuzberger]

I'll be in the pub in Bath on Saturday evening with a cousin. He is, beyond measure, my favourite uncle but officially a cousin with so much removedness that I can't be arsed with the calculation.

He is a fine fellow, a LibDem of some repute, and is far more interesting than Harriet Harman.

[Spoonman]

Still regularly meet my cousins on my mum's side of the family - all the surviving ones met up for my late grandfather's 90th birthday celebration back in 2021, a few weeks before he eventually passed away. I was playing basketball with the three youngest ones last Saturday!
A lot more cousins on my dad's side, but they are a lot more spread out across the world in comparison, around half of them are outside NI, so meeting up with some of them is a special occasion.
I think I must have roughly 40 cousins in total!

[Bones McCoy]

Yeah, but how many of these cousingshave provided you a £600,000 loan?

[Spoonman]

Yeah, but how many of these cousingshave provided you a £600,000 loan?

Knock a couple of zeros off and up to a handful of them (at most) might be able to.

[Bones McCoy]

Even Spivvy-three-names wants the Wassapp messages published.

Grant Shapps urges No 10 to hand Boris Johnson’s WhatsApps to Covid inquiry

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... id-inquiry

A cabinet minister has piled pressure on the government to hand over Boris Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp messages to the Covid inquiry, saying it should be allowed to “get on with its job”.

Grant Shapps, the energy secretary, said there was “nothing to be shy or embarrassed about” for ministers who were trying their best to grapple with the first pandemic in a century.

As the 4pm deadline for the Cabinet Office to hand over the files loomed, he called for the inquiry to be given “whatever they want”.

“There are things which we did that were very good,” Shapps told TalkTV. “Things will have gone wrong, naturally. The inquiry is there to get to the bottom of all of that.”

[davidjay]

I'm close to three cousins, but I only know one of their kids at all, really. Met them, but we are miles apart.

My mum was the youngest of a large family and I was the youngest grandchild by some years. I keep in touch with one and I would recognize another one, perhaps two, if I walked past them in the street. I wouldn't have a clue about their families or what any of them are up to. Except for a couple of funerals I haven't met any on my dad's side this century.

[Andy McDandy]

Even Spivvy-three-names wants the Wassapp messages published.

Shapps had a pretty good Covid. Transport regs were broadly followed, trucks didn't stop moving, trains did their thing, bit of a cock up on quarantining people flying in but he can dump that on Patel. No wonder the little bastard is feeling confident.

[Bones McCoy]

Even Spivvy-three-names wants the Wassapp messages published.

Shapps had a pretty good Covid. Transport regs were broadly followed, trucks didn't stop moving, trains did their thing, bit of a cock up on quarantining people flying in but he can dump that on Patel. No wonder the little bastard is feeling confident.

Does that mean he's got his eye on the leadership?

[Andy McDandy]

I'd not be surprised. Compared to the likes of Braverman he's practically an elder statesman.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

From Popbitch:

>> Picture this <<
It's evidence of something

Newsrooms all around Fleet Street have been abuzz with a story this week about an amusing last minute deadline panic at the Daily Mail.

Late last week, Mail editor Ted Verity came into possession of a bombshell photo showing Boris Johnson, his mother [who died in September 2021], his sister and little baby Wilf out in the open air at No.10. The Mail wrote up a big front page story about how the photo was PROOF that Boris had done no wrong and that the police are conducting a baseless witch hunt against him.

It was all laid out, ready to go to press, when one of the hacks looking over it piped up to ask if the four of them shouldn't have been much further apart – given that social distancing rules were in place at the time. Sure enough, the picture they were about to splash across their front page not only proved that Boris Johnson broke the rules he put in place, but that he still doesn't understand them now.

Because the super secret source of the photo, who thought its publication would fully exonerate Boris, was... Boris.

[satnav]

Yesterday Boris claimed that he had handed over all his Whatsapp messages yet today it was confirmed that he had only handed over messages which were on his current phone which he got half way through 2021. So he has only handed over a fraction of his messages.

[Oboogie]

Late last week, Mail editor Ted Verity came into possession of a bombshell photo showing Boris Johnson, his mother [who died in September 2021], his sister and little baby Wilf out in the open air at No.10. The Mail wrote up a big front page story about how the photo was PROOF that Boris had done no wrong and that the police are conducting a baseless witch hunt against him.

Even if we disregard the lack of social distancing, how on earth could anyone claim that such a picture 'proved' Johnson did no wrong? Are we supposed to believe that because they were photographed in the garden that is 'proof' they never went indoors?
Is that really it?
Surely even a Mailtard would see the flaw in that: a photo of you in one location cannot prove that you were never in another place. You can't prove a negative.

[Andy McDandy]

Designed to generate a response of "aww, lookit the cute kiddy an' his nana". Instant acquittal by the blue rinse brigade.

[Crabcakes]

Delighted for Johnson that his every move is now backfiring. Photo to clear yourself? More incriminating. Releasing your WhatsApp messages? Makes everyone aware you’re hiding everything from before May 2021, which reeks of a cover-up.

He knows what’s in there, and Sunak knows what’s in there. Hence the desperate court case. It’s Barnard Castle all over again - they’re trying to cover for Johnson because they know it will take them all down.

[Andy McDandy]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ver-mobile

Marina Hyde on the missing messages:

Boris Johnson can’t give the phone he used for most of the pandemic to the Covid inquiry because of security reasons. He says he still has the phone – then again, he says a lot of things. I think the phone has faked its own death and is living in sin beneath the North Sea with Rebekah Vardy’s agent’s phone.

What a titanic historical figure Boris Johnson won’t turn out to be, memorable only for the policy disasters and moral swamps into which his narcissism carelessly led us. At least we’ve got an inquiry touching on one or two of those. After that, let’s remove him from the chat.

Amen to that.