UPDATE: It's before dawn in L.A. and just after dawn in London. He just resigned. “When the herd moves," he said in from the 10 Downing Street, "it moves... Them’s the breaks.”
It’s night time in L.A. and it’s dawn in London. This post is meant for tomorrow morning and God only knows what will happen while I’m asleep. But I’m pretty sure something will. So take this as background. In case you’re only paying attention to Trump and Biden, Boris Johnson’s government is on the brink of collapse as Cabinet ministers resign and other high-ranking Conservatives abandon him. Yesterday a delegation of cabinet members visited him at 10 Downing Street and insisted he resign. He said no. At this point, resignations have been handed in by Chancellor Rishi Sunak, Health Secretary (and former Chancellor) Sajid Javid, Children Minister Will Quince, Solicitor General Alex Chalk, Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis, Environment Minister Jo Churchill, Employment Minister Mim1s Davies, Equalities and Local Government Minister Kemi Badenoch, School Minister Robin Walker, Justice Minister Victoria Atkins, Treasury Minister John Glen, Leveling Up Minister Neil O’Brien, Skills Minister Alex Burghart, Business Minister Lee Rowley, Export Minister Mike Freer and Minister for Media and Data Julia Lopez— as well as over 20 other members of parliament serving in high positions in ministries. Each told Johnson he should resign and make way for new leadership.
Others in government who haven’t resigned, most recently Housing Secretary Michael Gove (who Johnson fired late yesterday), Chief Whip Chris Heaton-Harris, Home Secretary Priti Patel, Welsh Secretary Simon Hart and Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, are telling Johnson he must step down, as he desperately clings to power. OK, so what’s up? There’s going to be a second no confidence vote and no one thinks Johnson can win it. What set off this storm was Johnson's decision to appoint serial sex maniac Chris Pincher deputy chief whip after it became public that he drunkenly groped two male staffers at a private club on Piccadilly. In 2017 Pincher was forced to step down after in similar groping incident with former Olympic rower Alex Story, something the Conservative party tried to cover up.
The Guardian reported that “Angela Rayner, the Labour deputy leader, said: ‘This latest episode shows how far standards in public life have been degraded on Boris Johnson’s watch. Boris Johnson has serious questions to answer about why Chris Pincher was given this role in the first place and how he can remain a Conservative MP. The Conservative party is so mired in sleaze and scandal that it is totally unable to tackle the challenges facing the British people.’ Boris Johnson’s government has been hit by a string of sexual misconduct scandals in recent months. Last month, a Conservative MP was arrested on suspicion of rape and sexual assault offences spanning seven years between 2002 and 2009. He was later bailed without being charged, pending further inquiries.”
Scotland Yard said the unnamed man in his 50s was also detained on suspicion of indecent assault, abuse of position of trust and misconduct in public office. The MP has not been suspended by the Conservative party but Heaton-Harris asked him to stay away from parliament.
Imran Ahmad Khan, the Conservative MP for Wakefield, was found guilty in April of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy after plying him with gin at a party in 2008. Khan assaulted the boy in Staffordshire in January 2008, 11 years before he became an MP. He resigned as an MP two weeks after he was found guilty.
Neil Parish, the Conservative MP for Tiverton and Honiton, also stood down in April after admitting to watching porn on his phone in the House of Commons, with the party subsequently losing its huge majority in the seat to the Liberal Democrats.
Another Conservative MP, David Warburton, lost the whip after the Sunday Times reported he was facing allegations from three women.
Warburton, 56, was accused by one of the women of climbing into bed with her naked. She told the newspaper she repeatedly warned that she did not want to have sex with him, but alleged that he ground his body against her and groped her breasts.
He is said to have denied any wrongdoing, and insisted he had “enormous amounts of defence, but unfortunately the way things work means that doesn’t come out first.”
Rob Roberts, the Conservative MP for Delyn, was allowed to rejoin the party despite an independent investigation finding that he sexually harassed a junior member of staff.
Roberts was suspended for 12 weeks after the independent panel found he had made “significant” repeated and unwanted sexual advances towards a former [male] member of staff and used “his position as his employer to place him under pressure to accede.”
He had his membership to the party restored but continued to sit as an independent MP in parliament.
Even before the Pincher scandal, the Conservatives lost two by-elections in late June, Wakefield to Labour and Tiverton and Honiton to a Liberal Democrat. That’s when the drumbeat for Johnson’s resignation began in earnest. Pincher resigned one week later. The BBC reported last night that The end of Boris Johnson's premiership appears imminent. The political editor, Chris Mason, wrote that “Sitting in the Press Gallery, watching Prime Minister's Questions, you could feel and hear Boris Johnson's authority draining away. Tribalism is measurable in decibels in Westminster, and the Conservative benches sat in near silence— the noise came from the opposition benches— in what was Boris Johnson's toughest PMQs since the general election. By early afternoon, the letters of resignation and no confidence were tumbling in, and even Mr Johnson's most loyal supporters privately— and often bluntly and colourfully— acknowledged the game was up, it was over. Is it curtains? I asked a cabinet minister. ‘Yes I fear so. It's hours and days,’ came the reply.”
Deranged Trump fanatic Nigel Farage is a real moron, so of course he’s a regular Fox News correspondent. Here he was on Fox Business with Stuart Varney yesterday: