Self-obsessed PM isn’t capable of resigning

THERE is, understandably, a strong emotional connotation between those gathering for a party for whatever reason and those gathering to attend a funeral for one singularly very painfully very personal reason; coincidentally on the same day. The example of one being the Prime Minister and the other being the Queen. There may well have been many such funerals that day that Mr Johnson partied that he could not possibly have known about. He would have known that it was the Queen attending the funeral of her husband. There were times when many of us found ourselves quietly mourning news of someone known who had died of Covid-19. And it reminds us – me – of our own fragility.

This was a time when none of us celebrated anything, except perhaps our own survival. The daily news and the figures on a board, the intonement of the casualties to the virus from a government podium labelled Prime Minister. Then the remarkable attempts by the media to provide us in our solitariness with some light relief ‘from it all’. Today, it is still a bad, horrendous dream.

Today, I still believe our nurses and doctors and hospital staff stood on the front line day after day and cared for the seemingly endless line of infected people in a way I doubt I could ever do. If for no body else, I owed it to them to obey the law on isolation to the very last letter. Sadly, there were some who did not think that way.

Mr Johnson lied to Parliament about his breaking the law. Worse, he knew he lied to our parliament. Worse, he said somebody else told him it was OK. Worse, he did it deliberately. It tells us voters just what he thought of our parliament. He was the more important.

For some 65 years I have held a strong interest in our parliament. Its is an institution I am very proud of, for its dignity, its honour and its honesty – and it is ours.

In the late 19th century it grew in stature. It became the people’s parliament, it slowly, slowly became to almost represent the people – except women – as the bundles of rotten corrupt boroughs were washed out. The right to vote was extended. The sinecures on parliamentary seats held by birth rather than by democratic election were ended.

I witnessed when Parliament passed the law allowing peers to renounce their peerage and 20 minutes later, Mr Benn did just that and the Conservative MP for Bristol also resigned, and in the by-election Mr Benn became the MP. It was a very honest and honourable thing the Conservative MP did... and it was right.

Mr John Profumo stood in parliament as defence minister and admitted he lied to parliament and resigned – and virtually spent the rest of his life atoning for his lying.

Significant was the resignation of Mr Neville Chamberlain in May 1940, when he knew he had lost the confidence of parliament. It was nine months into the most cataclysmic, critical war with Germany; perhaps at the worst time possible. It was probably the best wartime decision ever made.

The present Prime Minister is a proven liar. His wife said of him he is obsessed with two things... himself and money. He is capable of excusing himself from anything in his pursuit of self.

On the TV news of 12th April, we see him on his birthday in a school playground and seven to 10-year-old children, girls, have been lined up and told to sing ‘Happy Birthday.’.. just so he can be filmed. The cameramen have been told by the No 10 press office where and when to be there. Such is the extent of his sickening obsession with self.

I do not think he is capable of resigning. He will do anything to avoid it – even lie.

Don Frampton Newton Abbot, Devon