On Tuesday we have an interview televised with the sacked Mr Cummings. Everything he says about Mr Johnston is actually believable but is it anywhere near true? We have another previous cabinet minister say he sacked Mr Cummings and there are more ‘revelations’ to come.
What we have learned during covid, with more time to pay attention, is that the current Conservative cabinet are a different kind of Conservative to those we are used to. I grew up knowing Conservatives as pretty decent people who held different views on certain subjects. In those days we knew only what they let us know.
What a difference the digital age has made. Initially politicians were very wary. Nowadays there are so many groups trawling the internet for stories to share it is very hard to keep things quiet. Add to this a Prime Minister who appears to have no constraints and a short attention span. Did he get to be PM by allowing his ‘friends’ to use the public purse to get their ‘friends’ lucrative (and in some cases non existent) contracts? People are getting a bit fed up of the shenanigans going on at their expense.
Then today Ruthie (Baroness of Lundin Links) takes her seat in the House of Lords. Was she bought or was this the intended career path? It is just so wrong. Yes, go into politics. Go into it to improve your community. Treat it as a full-time job and do the community commitments. If done properly, being an elected member is time consuming. When you decide to step down have a wee get together for people to say thank you. When you decide to retire have a night out with a presentation. To step down after a mediocre achievement then secure an unelected seat in the UK parliament, with a daily attendance fee of £350 is taking the Michael. Is it a generational thing? Or is it just more in our face now a lot of us have access to immediate media cover?
Whichever way you look at it we are all being made fools of. We pay our taxes, they have ways of not paying. Most of us have done without and followed guidelines, they have done neither. I have seen a 2-year-old concentrate harder on a task than the Prime Minister can. It is high time we had some grown ups in charge at Westminster. Thank goodness the devolved governments have helped shield the Scots and the Welsh from some of his worst behaviour. The people of Northern Ireland have not been so lucky with the border issue.
It will be interesting to see what August brings us. In the meantime, I shall be keeping my distance from tourists and wearing my mask.