11th February 2022
This was an interesting tweet from earlier today:
A senior ally of Boris Johnson has said the Metropolitan Police will need to be 'very certain' that he has breached lockdown rules before issuing an FPN
'There is inevitably a degree of discretion here. Do you want the Met Police deciding who the prime minister is?'
— Steven Swinford (@Steven_Swinford) February 11, 2022
So much to unpack in this.
But perhaps the most striking thing is that such an utterance was made at all.
The journalist is experienced and well-regarded, and so we can safely assume this was said by someone.
Journalistic convention means “senior ally” could mean a range of people – including Boris Johnson himself – but it would be someone significant.
And what is this “senior ally” doing with this speech act?
Well.
It appears that they are seeking to influence the police investigation.
Indeed, in this context, the statement quoted could even amount to an attempt to intimidate or otherwise wrongly place pressure on the police.
You may remember that the Prime Minister said that there would not be “a running commentary” on the police investigation.
Well, this quoted remark is more of “a getting carried away” commentary.
The correct position for the police would be to disregard such a statement – though it may irk them into imposing a sanction just so to show their independence.
And the correct position at Johnson’s end would be for a “senior ally” to have not said this at all.
But looking at the two Swinford tweets above, you get the sense that this is some “barrack-room” (or “cabinet-room”?) non-lawyer coming up with some clever-clever line – though one which would not survive contact with legal reality.
Such spinning and framing may work with the lobby, and thereby influence media processes, but it will not work with a legalistic process.
Wrong tool, wrong job.
Since that reported statement, it would seem wiser “allies” are aware of the unfortunate impression that statement gave:
Breaking:
Number 10 spokesperson says Govt 'fully respects' independence of police to carry out inquiries 'without fear or favour'
'This government has always backed the police and fully respects their complete independence to carry out inquiries without fear or favour'
— Steven Swinford (@Steven_Swinford) February 11, 2022
That Downing Street even had to put out such an assurance is, by itself, telling.
It tells us that there are some in Number Ten who realise the legal danger the Prime Minister is in – and that effectively taunting the police is not a sensible tactic.
Perhaps this strange moment will be forgotten – but what may linger is the sense that Johnson – either through his “senior allies” or otherwise – has a lack of seriousness about his legal peril.
That grave problems can be got out of by such desperate expedients.
Johnson and his “senior allies” should brace, brace.
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The briefing by this “senior ally” displays, albeit mutedly, the mafiaesque leanings of the Johnson gang. But surely the whole brouhaha wouldn’t have arisen if the journalist had refused to use an anonymous briefing? I understand why these are sometimes necessary, but in this case, and on far too many over the past few years, anonymity just confers a license to push boundaries with impunity.
I am not a lawyer nor a journalist, but I would say that hiding the identity from the public on the basis of anonymous briefing is one thing.
The other thing is whether the journalist might have an obligation to disclose evidence of a potential crime to the police, including the identity of who said it. This might be a moral obligation or a professional obligation as part of their employment.
It’s dispiriting – “when I were a lad”, of course, skulduggery still abounded. But the skulduggers at least had the decency to feel shame, when caught. Now, not only is there a lack of shame at low behaviour, but even a jeering and contemptuous defiance, one which asserts, loutishly, that stuff like the rule of law is a species of mere namby-pamby red tape. Take a look at this maudlin screed in Unherd, by Aris Roussinos, ranting about: “pointless, time-consuming lawfare of Twitter barristers calling themselves defenders of the rule of law”:
https://unherd.com/2022/02/the-tragedy-of-boris-johnson/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=406034bc78&mc_eid=6bd5875eac
It’s Yeats’ line again: “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
Thank you David for all your recent blogs, which are as usual very worthwhile. I am myself continually – almost continuously – so shocked and dejected by all these carying-ons that I feel rendered speechless!
When you think the Prime Minister and his phalanx of dumb stooges could not go lower, then down they go, deeper and deeper into the mire. You can sense the panic, that one of the few grown-ups left in the nursery realised what had been done, and rushed around to try and correct it. Presumably the gossip-mongers in parliament will already be speculating and may even know who committed this latest idiocy, but would be good if they could share that knowledge. No doubt the Prime Minister will deny any involvement, but given everything else he has said and done, that denial would, sadly, carry no weight, and maybe even the reverse.
This cannot go on much longer.
This feels like the equivalent of “Don’t you know who I am?” and, like that, seems guaranteed to get backs up. Which it has.
We’ve spoken before about the PM being badly advised and this really does feel like the worst advice possible.
Taken together with his comment about needing tanks to remove him, this sense of entitlement feels too close to some divine right.
An advisor might like to remind him what happened last time somebody acted as if they had a diving right…
Memento mori.
Memento te hominem esse.
Respice post te, hominem te esse memento.
And there was me who has thought that the PM was verry proud of his classic education. I guesss he hadnt the time to digest its meaning.
sorry for the typos
It is very Bullingdon though: crass, entitled, witless, unthinking, bullying; “Constable, you should know my father plays golf with the chief commissioner” sort of line. “And even if we do get caught and appear before the beak the fine is paltry – I would spend more on a bottle of wine…” Indeed, everything one might expect from a “senior ally” of Johnson. How long, Lord, how long?
Interesting you should say that “you should know my father plays golf” etc comment.
Only yesterday I was reading that Johnson used to use the threat of his friendship with the Barclay Brothers as a get-out-of-jail free card with his critics at the Telegraph.
He really lacks any moral compass.
There is a dreadful scenario in which this sort of tactic succeeds and that Johnson, despite being fined, weaves his way out of the corner and remains in office because his Tory party colleagues, who are unfortunately the arbiters here, do not have the balls to fire him. At this point he becomes like his US friend, bullying his party and making them even more compliant to his will and enabling him to push through repressive legislation and economic decay.
There is another scenario in which enough letters go in very shortly and somehow the Tories find enough leadership and justice in their ranks to elect a new leader with integrity and intelligence. They might even have to look in the House of Lords, but look they must.
I am not sure what they might find if they took a look in the House of Lords – unless there are one or two new Tory peers who think that they can purchase the title “First Lord of the Treasury”.
Not to prejudge the issue (!), but we all know Johnson is as guilty as the man behind the grassy knoll. If Bojo and most of the 50 (and why only 50?) do not get fined, then the fix is in. I can’t see Johnson resigning on a matter of honour (the PM found criminally responsible for flouting the legislation he drafted), it will be sold as a minor (or even a technical) infraction, as he has none. In a way, that outcome would be worse for Johnson in the “court of public opinion” than if he was fined and may go a long way to ensure that he loses the only vote of no confidence that matters: a general election – not that I can imagine him ever facing the electorate again.
Well, there are some interesting legal points to work through, but I would assert that messages on Twitter are not the best place to do so.
For example, 10 Downing Street is the official residence of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, but is it really his home, in the sense of “the premises where they live” for the purposes of the Coronavirus Regulations at the relevant time. Or might that instead be the flat over number 11 which he has occupied during this period with his partner (now wife) and later their infant child (now children). As I understand it, Rishi Sunak uses the flat at number 10, and they share the garden behind numbers 10 and 11 (like other properties, with a first floor flat and a garden flat) although both he and Johnson have other residences in London and elsewhere.
Part of the building – most of it – is a place of work, but was there always a reasonable cause for Johnson to leave his flat when that was prohibited? And were any “gatherings” essential for work purposes, when that was the test? Is Downing Street a “public place”? Is it Crown property and if so is it caught by the regulations at all?
Some lawyers make a good living by finding narrow technical arguments to defend their clients against prosecutions for road traffic offences. I am sure there are some who could do a similar job in relation to alleged coronavirus offences. It is a bad look for a politician to be observe only the letter and not the spirit of the law (but better than observing neither).
If I were him, I would not want to be relying on any of the lawyers in the Cabinet. But perhaps he can find someone on the internet who can explain how Magna Carta means these rules do not apply to him as a freeman on the land under the common law?
Very powerful piece (as ever) referencing the quote from the “senior ally” of Johnson, by the ineffable Marina Hyde in The Grauniad this afternoon. See: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/11/farewell-cressida-dick-the-met-chief-only-interested-in-one-thing-ignoring-bad-coppers
Says it all for me.
Job done by the ‘close ally’. They’ve put it out there and those words are reverberating around and can’t be undone.
“Nice little police service you’ve got there, squire.”
“Be a shame if something should happen to it …”
There is no way this senior source would have said that to a experienced journalist – with whom they certainly have a long record of off the record briefing, without it coming from Johnson himself.
In his guest opinion in the Guardian published in June 2019 when the Tory leadership election campaign was underway, the impeccable Conservative & Johnson’s old boss Max Hastings noted that Johnson has form in direct threats to people, writing that “in my personal files I have several handwritten notes from our possible future PM threatening dire consequences against me personally if I said anything negative about him in print”.
Now with the full panoply of powers of the office of PM and numerous utterly faithful acolytes in cabinet Johnson won’t hesitate to threaten and even act on those threats.
As you say, much to unpack. I am particularly struck by how skilled his lawyer will have to be to argue that his home being his workplace is a ‘unique situation’. Is this not the normal situation for many self-employed people, and was it not even more common when ‘working from home’ was the official advice during lockdown?
Secondly, even if his lawyer pulls it off, it is a defence that only the Prime Minister personally can use. What does it say about him, and his sense of privilege as House Captain, that he is prepared to take advantage of a technicality unique to him while his minions and the fags get the beating?
But it is possible to discern one redeeming point in these tweets, the rhetorical question of ‘the Met deciding who the Prime Minister is’. Stripped of the usual slanted half-truths and innuendo of present Government-speak, it does imply that someone senior in No 10 realises that this is, or could be, a resigning matter. Whether that would be translated into action, however, is anyone’s guess.
I suspect that this sort of thing has been going on since constitutional powers were first “separated”. This dummy’s error was doing it on twitter, so that we plebs could see it happening in real time.