Let me take you back to December, 2020. It had been 10 months since Covid came to our shores, there were 600 deaths as a result of it every day, and 10% of children were off school.
On December 14, then-Health Secretary Matt Hancock held a press conference watched by half the country, saying that London was about to move from Tier 2 - no indoor mixing - to Tier 3 - pubs shut, work from home, avoid travel, 15 guests at weddings, 30 at funerals, and a rule of six even in outdoor spaces. It was, in short, not a party.
Except in the basement of Conservative HQ, where two dozen people had gathered for a Christmas bash that very same day. For them there was booze, nibbles, festive jumpers, paper hats, The Pogues, dancing, one peerage, a Government job, and an OBE.
Half the country was on a Zoom call, and key workers were dying, but failed Tory MP and wannabe Mayor of London Shaun Bailey was gurning away in a photo with his campaign team, alongside billionaire Tory donor Nick Candy, in front of a pillar spattered with eye-level warnings about maintaining 2 metres' social distancing.
Care homes were locking out relatives. Covid wards were banning deathbed goodbyes. If you went to church, you couldn't step outside your own support bubble and ask the priest to hold your hand. Yet Bailey had just been presented with a Lego set as a Christmas present at a party that was neither reasonably necessary, nor a work event.
Queen honoured in London New Year's fireworks before turning into King Charles
We now know those 'keep your distance' posters were on the pillar directly behind Shaun BaileyThere was so much drunken shenanigans that doors got broken. Four of the attendees had been seconded to the campaign from the Conservative Party machine. Word got round. But nothing much was done.
When there were reports that he was so unlikely to win he should be replaced by someone else, Bailey's campaign team boasted he had the personal support of Boris Johnson. Three months after the party, when the Mirror reported funding was drying up, his campaign called it "fictional" and "hearsay".
It was not until December 2021 that the hangover kicked in, when the Partygate revelations led to the discovery of a photo that led to Shaun Bailey resigning as chairman of the police and crime committee at the London Assembly. For the best, really, seeing as he'd been breaking the law.
Tory HQ admitted it happened; admitted doors were broken; said four people were disciplined. It was remarkable among the parties that were uncovered for having been so rapidly confessed to, and punished.
What was less remarked on was why, exactly, Bailey had quit over one party when Johnson had clung on despite dozens. Nor why the police did not investigate his bash, citing a lack of evidence, when the evidence for it was on the front pages, and within the campaign finances where, it may be assumed, there would have lurked an invoice for the catering.
It shows just how disreputable the rest of Johnson's resignation honours list was that Bailey's inclusion as a £300-a-day-for-life peer following a less-than-stellar political career drew little attention: as though resigning from a committee and keeping your head down explained a shindig big enough to render a wedding illegal.
But here come the consequences, the flashbacks, the shameful recollection of a night everyone hoped you'd forgotten. A peerage for the man who scrutinised the police for how they handled crime in London; a job with a minister for the lad in a Christmas jumper who can't twirl a girl without knocking over some glasses; and an OBE for the chap in festive braces, presumably because the ability to wear such things indicates a life in which unnecessary embellishment will be inevitable.
Ben Mallet, in braces, chats with a colleague
Mallet was later given an OBENot one of those people displayed any honour. Nor will they show any by accepting anything from a Prime Minister so dishonourable that a sewer rat would think him beyond the pale.
To act with honour means knowing what is right and then doing it - sometimes in the teeth of opposition. There are many who work in Conservative HQ, who vote Tory, or believe in a small state and lower taxes, who believe in those values and stick to them. To follow the rules, after all, is about as conservative as it is possible to be. It is not uniquely Tory to behave this way, but it does seem to be uniquely those who can be described as inconsiderate arse-hats who partied while everyone else was threatened.
What the 24 people in these videos and photographs have done is to act with dishonour. They dishonoured the Covid dead, the grieving families; they dishonoured the rules and the efforts of public health experts to show the country how important they were in keeping us safe. They fed the anti-vax conspiracy theorists, they besmirched their party, which is yet-more unelectable as a result. If they accept the baubles they've been offered by the most disgraced Prime Minister in living memory, then they will only tarnish those, as well, and they were pretty mucky to begin with.
Carol Vorderman 'scrubs up' for New Year after being branded 'queen of cougars'
Someone had enough honour to make the photograph public, and then this video. That person is worth a round of applause - but the rest, unless they hand back their gongs and show the humility to even attempt to assuage the grief of 600 families who lost a loved one that day, are worth nothing but disdain.
If those 'resignation honours' are to stand, then anyone who accepts it is by definition not worthy of it.
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
