Post by notoriousnobbi on Apr 24, 2023 19:07:35 GMT
Sorry, I just have to continue.
There are just too many dynamite and juicy information snippets!
Peter Foster mentions snippets from 2 articles in the "Times" on twitter
As we don't know how stable twitter will stay, I do some quoting
‘We’ve got no plan ... Holy crap’:
What Boris said after Brexit vote
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/376c42a2-df8a-11ed-9cc2-0f7e26ed83eb?shareToken=d2ddb163655d21a9fec9d69c3b02242a
What really happened in Boris Johnson’s Covid bunker
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/962f7a20-e048-11ed-b345-4f26be9c4278?shareToken=65dc442ce684818256e9638495b44da8
Imagine having to work under these circumstances ...
These are extracts from a soon available book
Johnson at 10: The Inside Story
by Anthony Seldon and Raymond Newell
(*) why worry on some potential terrorists among boat people
if You have an PM who nearly gave the virus to the Queen?
There are just too many dynamite and juicy information snippets!
Peter Foster mentions snippets from 2 articles in the "Times" on twitter
As we don't know how stable twitter will stay, I do some quoting
‘We’ve got no plan ... Holy crap’:
What Boris said after Brexit vote
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/376c42a2-df8a-11ed-9cc2-0f7e26ed83eb?shareToken=d2ddb163655d21a9fec9d69c3b02242a
... a new thought struck him:
“Oh shit, we’ve got no plan. We haven’t thought about it. I didn’t think it would happen. Holy crap, what will we do?” Still muttering, he went off to write the speech he knew he would in no time have to deliver. Those who knew Johnson intimately say they had never seen him more frightened and dismayed than at this moment of triumph.
Crowds were shouting angrily outside his house: “People who had patted him on the back when he had been mayor were now screaming at him.” He made it out to the car and his driver shot off down the road but had to stop at a red traffic light at the end. Aides by his side screamed for the driver to shoot straight through the lights, but he refused. “The crowds began banging angrily on the windows and roof. Boris looked terrified. He stared dead ahead, sensing that from this moment on, everything had changed.”
It was to change still more. Within just hours of the result being declared, cracks began to appear between the two frontrunners to succeed Cameron, Johnson and Gove.
...
“Oh shit, we’ve got no plan. We haven’t thought about it. I didn’t think it would happen. Holy crap, what will we do?” Still muttering, he went off to write the speech he knew he would in no time have to deliver. Those who knew Johnson intimately say they had never seen him more frightened and dismayed than at this moment of triumph.
Crowds were shouting angrily outside his house: “People who had patted him on the back when he had been mayor were now screaming at him.” He made it out to the car and his driver shot off down the road but had to stop at a red traffic light at the end. Aides by his side screamed for the driver to shoot straight through the lights, but he refused. “The crowds began banging angrily on the windows and roof. Boris looked terrified. He stared dead ahead, sensing that from this moment on, everything had changed.”
It was to change still more. Within just hours of the result being declared, cracks began to appear between the two frontrunners to succeed Cameron, Johnson and Gove.
...
What really happened in Boris Johnson’s Covid bunker
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/962f7a20-e048-11ed-b345-4f26be9c4278?shareToken=65dc442ce684818256e9638495b44da8
By January 2020, Boris Johnson believed that with the crises of Brexit and the snap election behind him it would be relatively plain sailing for the next five and more years. Instead, he ran headlong into the worst health crisis since the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-19.
...
“Matt Hancock arrived at meetings insisting that PPE, testing and care homes were being handled and he was on top of it all, when it was evident to all in the room that nothing was further from the truth,” says an official. “Boris knew Matt was lying, but everybody was very conscious that there would be an inquiry, and that what they were saying would be recorded.” Hancock was desperate to appear competent and keep others (particularly Cummings) off his turf, even if that meant misleading the prime minister. Cummings despised Hancock even more than others, and wanted him fired.
...
The content of a prime minister’s audience with the sovereign is sacred, with no advisers in attendance and no official record of the discussion. The sanctity of this one would be easier to keep than most:
afterwards the Queen turned to an aide and commented that she couldn’t hear a word of what Johnson had said, he was coughing so much. Had the meeting gone ahead as planned, the head of government would probably have given the head of state the virus, a scandal not even Johnson could have downplayed. (*)
...
On Friday, April 5, the day on which the Queen addressed the nation, his health began to decline alarmingly. He held on until it became clear he needed medical attention and could not go on as he was, lasting the evening so that news of his admission did not overshadow Her Majesty’s speech. He was sent to St Thomas’ hospital feverish. Johnson had previously lined up the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, to cover for him in case of illness, on the typical Johnson basis that he took a look at the alternatives and didn’t want anybody else to have it for fear of strengthening their hand.
...
No 10 office staff were presented with a warning on Raab’s arrival. “In advance we were told about his bullying and shouting,” recalls one official. Despite Raab’s style, most political staff and senior civil servants praised his handling of the situation, not least for the contrast with his boss.
...
Officials soon found themselves pining for Raab’s ability. “It’s astonishing that we were grateful for Raab, because tasks like chairing meetings, being decisive and willing to let people down are so basic, but the prime minister we had just couldn’t do them,” says one.
Johnson returned no more consistent than ever, in the words of another official:
“He wildly oscillated in what he thought. It became difficult when he took a decision to know whether it would hold and how much importance to give it, because so often he changed his mind.” Another recalls how “at one point, I had to show him the printout of what he had said in a meeting, because he was denying completely what he’d decided upon earlier that day now that he was unhappy about the decision”.
Cummings remained the domineering figure in No 10.
...
...
“Matt Hancock arrived at meetings insisting that PPE, testing and care homes were being handled and he was on top of it all, when it was evident to all in the room that nothing was further from the truth,” says an official. “Boris knew Matt was lying, but everybody was very conscious that there would be an inquiry, and that what they were saying would be recorded.” Hancock was desperate to appear competent and keep others (particularly Cummings) off his turf, even if that meant misleading the prime minister. Cummings despised Hancock even more than others, and wanted him fired.
...
The content of a prime minister’s audience with the sovereign is sacred, with no advisers in attendance and no official record of the discussion. The sanctity of this one would be easier to keep than most:
afterwards the Queen turned to an aide and commented that she couldn’t hear a word of what Johnson had said, he was coughing so much. Had the meeting gone ahead as planned, the head of government would probably have given the head of state the virus, a scandal not even Johnson could have downplayed. (*)
...
On Friday, April 5, the day on which the Queen addressed the nation, his health began to decline alarmingly. He held on until it became clear he needed medical attention and could not go on as he was, lasting the evening so that news of his admission did not overshadow Her Majesty’s speech. He was sent to St Thomas’ hospital feverish. Johnson had previously lined up the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, to cover for him in case of illness, on the typical Johnson basis that he took a look at the alternatives and didn’t want anybody else to have it for fear of strengthening their hand.
...
No 10 office staff were presented with a warning on Raab’s arrival. “In advance we were told about his bullying and shouting,” recalls one official. Despite Raab’s style, most political staff and senior civil servants praised his handling of the situation, not least for the contrast with his boss.
...
Officials soon found themselves pining for Raab’s ability. “It’s astonishing that we were grateful for Raab, because tasks like chairing meetings, being decisive and willing to let people down are so basic, but the prime minister we had just couldn’t do them,” says one.
Johnson returned no more consistent than ever, in the words of another official:
“He wildly oscillated in what he thought. It became difficult when he took a decision to know whether it would hold and how much importance to give it, because so often he changed his mind.” Another recalls how “at one point, I had to show him the printout of what he had said in a meeting, because he was denying completely what he’d decided upon earlier that day now that he was unhappy about the decision”.
Cummings remained the domineering figure in No 10.
...
These are extracts from a soon available book
Johnson at 10: The Inside Story
by Anthony Seldon and Raymond Newell
(*) why worry on some potential terrorists among boat people
if You have an PM who nearly gave the virus to the Queen?