Our Company, JPES Partners, is mostly staffed by younger people. They have embraced the need to be vaccinated and several of us have had our boosters, but not in a Johnsonian ‘boosterism’ way…Throughout the pandemic their diligence in meeting client needs and keeping activities going successfully has been really excellent. Indeed heart-warming, as is their concern for colleagues and their families in these challenging times.
So it is with a heavy heart that we have decided to cancel our Christmas Party next week in favour of much more modest, socially distanced festivities. We simply do not want to expose employees unnecessarily to the dangers of having to self-isolate over the Christmas break. We all want to enjoy this time of the year avoiding, as much as possible, putting older relatives at any sort of risk. We have our Company offsite at the end of January and will reschedule it to then, hoping that the latest wave of this damn coronavirus is receding by this time.
These decisions were clear-cut. It feels like the best balance of common sense and keeping the show on the road. So, we ask ourselves, why is it so difficult for the Government?
It is because there is a moral vacuum at the heart of this administration. As written many times before, Johnson sets the tone and he is a chancer, a rule breaker, for rules apply to other people not him. Economical with the truth but having connected with voters with his superficial charisma, he feels entitled to ‘wing it’. Well, that is not good enough and certainly not in a Prime Minister.
He is being found out through the actions of his staff and his own actions. It does not look pretty. Blatantly misleading statements about parties in Downing Street last December, the excruciating recording of a mock press conference addressing them, on top of the Owen Paterson affair and the funding of Johnson’s Downing Street flat is adding up to be quite a disaster. The government is losing its moral authority, just when it needs it to manage the Omicron wave of the virus. And the rot starts from the top.
Today, Downing Street cancelled its Christmas Party in a wholly inconsistent way to the alleged activities of last December. One doubts there were moral dilemmas in reaching this decision. It was simply a tactical ploy to try and pour water on indignant flames.
Too little, too late. It is time the Tory Party as a whole fully woke up to the flaws in the man leading it before voters do. Otherwise, there won’t be many future Happy Christmases for this Government.
Inside Right Politics 