No Jubi-glee in weekend of woe
THE Queen’s Platinum Jubilee gave millions of Brits the chance to bask in the sunshine and toast the long reign of their beloved monarch.
But for Boris Johnson, the bank holiday was a festival of humiliation.
The Prime Minister faced cold public anger, national ridicule and a plot to oust him from power.
The first signs that Partygate would rain on his parade came as the crowds at St Paul’s Cathedral greeted him with a chorus of boos and jeers.
His nightmare continued at the Jubilee concert when comedian Lee Mack, right, openly mocked him.
Mack said: “We are here right outside the gates of Buckingham Palace for the party of a lifetime. I’ll tell you what: finally we can say the words ‘party’ and ‘gate’ and it’s a positive.”
QI host Stephen Fry was even less sparing of the PM’s dignity, asking: “How many local sewage works has our Majesty opened with a bright smile? How many plaques unveiled? How many Prime Ministers tolerated?
“For that alone, no admiration is high enough.”
When Sunday arrived, broadcasters remarked on an unusually downcast PM as he watched the pomp and ceremony of the Jubilee parade. It is now clear why he appeared so glum: Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tories, had called minutes before the pageantry began. Brady had told the PM he had lost the support of enough Tory MPs that a confidence vote would have to be held. Extraordinarily, he kept the news to himself until afterwards, cutting a lonely figure in the crowd as he digested it.