John Williams, Hospitality worker
It’s been nearly 18 months since the first revelations of ‘Partygate’ – ex-prime minister Boris Johnson and his cronies partying, whilst the rest of the UK was in strict Covid lockdown. People are still furious, and will remain furious for years to come.
Question Time host Fiona Bruce asked the audience: “There are more people in this audience who voted for Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party than for any other party here… who believes Boris Johnson was telling the truth?”
Not a single person put up their hand. That just shows the utter contempt people now have for the Tories who go from one scandal to another.
Hospitality
I work in hospitality, and we remember how frustrating it was trying to implement the constantly changing rules. It was almost as if Boris Johnson had read the ‘How to piss off hospitality workers and destroy the industry for dummies’ guidebook, and took his government policies from there.
Did Johnson ever abide by these rules that we had to? His comments at parliament’s ‘privileges committee’ are laughable and incredibly frustrating. “The rules were followed at all times… Covid guidance was followed at all times”.
He obviously thought his own rules didn’t apply to him. I had to put off seeing my late Nan for months, when she probably needed me the most, because I wanted to keep her safe. I’ll never forget or forgive Boris Johnson for that.
Since then, in another bizarre statement, he has gone on to say that the gatherings were “essential for work purposes”, in order to maintain “morale”. No one believes this.
Johnson clapped for the NHS once a week. But did he give health workers inflation-proof pay rises and properly fund the NHS? To make sure the over 150,000 and rising NHS vacancies were filled? Of course not.
It’s disgraceful that we’ve had to wait well over a year before Johnson was even officially interrogated by MPs – and when we all know the truth anyway. And it shouldn’t just be left to establishment MPs to do this.
The working class needs its own party to stop self-serving careerists like Boris Johnson, and other capitalist politicians that put profit before lives and livelihoods during the Covid pandemic. Instead, we need working-class representatives who will fight for us.
