The Parable of the Prime Minister’s Curtains and the Mysterious Black Bin Bag

12th December 2021

From time to time, if you are lucky and alert, you can watch urban legends form in real time before your eyes.

In the last twenty-four hours we have seen the creation of a new conspiracy theory, to go with the likes of the moon landing hoax and Piltdown man.

It began with a tweet and a picture:

It is a good, good scoop.

The picture, of course, is not in and of itself incriminating.

Three people, including the Prime Minister, on a Zoom or similar call.

The Santa hat and the tinsel are indicative of it perhaps not being an especially earnest work call.

It is unlikely, for example, that the other call participant was, say, Vladimir Putin.

But it is the context which makes the picture significant.

If the three participants were not together for work purposes at the time of last Christmas then it would seem to have been an unlawful gathering.

And if, instead of Vladimir Putin’s stern unsmiling face, the Prime Minister was looking at a screen full of quiz participants – his own staff – crowded around their monitors, then his staff would seem to be in unlawful gatherings too.

When the Prime Minister said ‘all the rules have been followed’ he did not mention they were the quiz rules.

If these contextual points can be made out then this could be a difficult situation for the Prime Minister and his staff.

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You would think this was bad enough – and sufficient to satisfy those who are hostile to the Prime Minister and distrustful of him.

But no.

The picture also, it was contended, showed something even worse, if you looked carefully.

Looked hard, like one would look at a slice of toast to maybe see a somewhat bewildered face of Jesus.

In the top-left corner, we were told, there is black bin liner.

And if there is a black bin liner, it followed, it would have to be masking a security camera.

But.

There is no black bin liner.

And under the lack of a black bin liner there is no security camera.

What you can see is a pelmet – in effect upholstery for curtains.

You can see this in these pics:

This, of course, did not prevent a number of usually sensible people from tweeting about a black bin liner hiding a security camera – members of parliament, journalists, critical thinkers.

As well as all those who, well, would also tweet without any hesitation in other situations about ‘dead cats’ and ‘false flags’.

What all this tells us is a couple of things,

The first is the truth that many people will want to see a deeper conspiracy when no conspiracy needs to be posited.

The second is that we have a Prime Minister for whom many will believe it is plausible is capable of adopting the tactic of putting a black bin liner over a Downing Street security camera.

The number of people ready to believe this of our current Prime Minister is in and of itself significant.

(Indeed, some reading this blog post would be ready to believe if there were more compelling evidence.)

But as this blog averred recently, we have an arrogant government that has not even got the basic competence to be deceitful and cunning.

Even if there were a security camera in Downing Street instead of a pelmet, Johnson would probably not have cared anyway.

This is because he would (then) have undoubtedly not even thought that it could possibly matter – at least to him.

So what?

Well.

And now we come to the real political significance of the picture.

For what is important for what happens next to the Prime Minister is how freely this information is now being given to the press by his own staff.

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8 thoughts on “The Parable of the Prime Minister’s Curtains and the Mysterious Black Bin Bag”

  1. As you say, we have a Prime Minister of whom many will believe that he’s capable of putting a bin liner over a Downing Street security camera in order to obscure nefarious goings-on, and that the number of people ready to believe this of him is in and of itself significant. As you’ve shown, there was no bin liner. But, regarding the second point, I did find myself wondering if, in order to distract media attention from parties and the pandemic, he’d encouraged the hospital to hasten his wife’s delivery of their second child. Because he does strike me as the kind of person who would do so.

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  2. As you are a fan of accuracy, I must sadly point out that it’s not a pelmet – it’s the bottom of a Roman blind. I was one of those who thought the bin bag quite credible…

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  3. The real problem for Johnson now, DAG, is that no one believes a word of what Johnson says anymore – some of us never did, but he managed to fool the people some of the time. But now only a few continue to believe: not you, not us, not the press, not his MPs and least of all those who are close to him who are most acutely aware he will throw them under the bus to save his own skin. He is Flashman but without the style or panache.

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  4. What’s truly shocking is those tartan chair covers with that carpet.

    Incidentally, surely it must be possible to identify the mantelpiece in the photo and so narrow down the list of possible leakers.

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  5. Ok let’s start another rumour – why has the mantlepiece clock mysteriously disappeared in the Bojo shot – is it an attempt to hide the fact that the quiz was happening in work time????? or is it he has sold it at the local boot sale to help pay for a new supply of nappies?

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  6. Those rooms look as if they would work as settings for another episode of Flashman.
    “Flashman and the Pandemic Games” perhaps?

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  7. A very lovely room. Are the curtains meant to be black? They definitely not bin liners. Perhaps red curtains would look nicer. or even red blinds.

    Reply

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