So Boris Johnson will mark the end of his time as Prime Minister by partying while the nation is in crisis – hardly surprising. People are accusing him of having “mentally checked out” of the job – but this is how he’s behaved ever since he first entered No10.
The wellbeing of the people who elected him has always come second to his own desires and interests.
He skipped Cobra meetings to write a book while Covid was taking its grip. He enjoyed parties in Downing Street while the country was obeying lockdown rules. He even wanted to squeeze in a postponed wedding party with wife Carrie at his grace-and-favour mansion – until public outrage forced a change of venue.
And now he’s left his underlings to work out how to keep people safe from a record-breaking heatwave while he hangs up the bunting for his own lavish leaving do.
If guests at the Prime Minister’s goodbye bash start to feel the heat, they can cool off in Chequers’ indoor swimming pool.
Meanwhile, the clown car-full of Tory ladder-climbers who propped up Johnson’s disastrous premiership are battling to rule over whatever hasn’t melted or caught fire come September.
Whoever gets the keys to Chequers next, their first job should be to call an election so the British people have the chance to pick a PM who puts them first.
Sorry excuses
It’s four years since the Sunday Mirror’s investigation laid bare the jaw-dropping scale of child abuse in Telford.
And still the details shock. As many as 1,000 girls were raped and abused over a period of decades. Victims were treated as “common prostitutes” – and rather than ringing alarm bells, an uptick in teen pregnancies was dismissed as a public health issue.
And today yet more failures by those in authority can be revealed – which may have allowed the evil gangs to continue their campaign of abuse for years.
A cache of evidence sat gathering dust in a police vault for a decade. And when a hero cop finally began to take the case seriously, he claims he was told not to “rock the boat”.
But DCI Alan Edwards stuck to his guns, dismissing the “nervousness about race” that had kept the investigation on ice.
The very least victims of this shameful episode deserve is an apology.
And no amount of money can re-write the past – but compensation from those who got so much, so wrong and for so long – would be a start.
Back in saddle
Rebekah Vardy is locked in yet another stinking row – over how she’ll get rid of her horse manure.
If this dispute with Town Hall bosses over her new stables runs and runs, it’s going to need a name – maybe just change Wagatha Christie to Nag-atha Christie?
