Parliament will tolerate Boris Johnson’s lies but draws the line at wearing chinos

Boris Johnson looking shocked over the Tory spring conference protest


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Apparently it’s fine to lie through your teeth in parliament if you’re Boris Johnson – as long as you’re not wearing chinos or jeans while doing it. That’s what people on Twitter are inferring the House of Commons speaker’s new rules mean. And they’re not happy.

Smarten up!

BBC News tweeted:

It reported that House of Commons speaker Lindsay Hoyle has updated the rules on “behaviour and courtesies” for MPs. This includes a dress code. The Times‘ Matt Chorley gave a helpful list on Twitter of just what Hoyle was telling MPs they couldn’t wear:

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Hoyle’s new rules specifically say that MPs should wear “business attire”, and if they don’t then the speaker can boot them out. But on Twitter, many people spotted an issue with Hoyle’s rules of conduct: namely the tolerance of Johnson’s repeated lying:

That Johnson video

Peter Stefanovic’s video that documents Johnson’s lies has now had nearly had 34m views. And he was not impressed with Hoyle, either:

As Bywire News reported, Johnson’s untruths included:

Claim 5: On the 17th of June 2020, during PMQs [Prime Minister’s Questions], the Prime Minister said “There are hundreds of thousands, I think 400,000, fewer families living in poverty now than there were in 2010”.

This is not true. A parliamentary watchdog already issued Johnson with a warning over his previous lies about poverty. Moreover, some of the media, like Good Morning Britain and Sky News, have reported on Stefanovic’s video. But the BBC specifically hasn’t.

Blacklisted?

Byline Times writer Brian Cathcart believes it’s because the public service broadcaster has “blacklisted” Stefanovic’s video. He called it “perverse” that the BBC would do that, noting:

Is the BBC afraid of setting a precedent of placing itself under an obligation to report every political video that achieves 33 million views? It’s a feeble argument, but if it does believe that why doesn’t it say so? Does it doubt Stefanovic’s motives? Does it believe that the number of views has been fiddled? Again pretty daft, but again, let it say it.

For the moment, the BBC looks about as bad as it could: as though it has blacklisted someone for criticising the Prime Minister.

So, if our public service broadcaster doesn’t care about (or is actively trying to hide) the PM’s lying, why should the speaker be bothered? He clearly isn’t, given that his priority seems to be what MPs are wearing in parliament. Moreover, one of his deputies threw Labour MP Dawn Butler out of parliament for calling Johnson a liar. And Hoyle himself has done little to address Johnson’s lies since telling him off in March. So it’s left to social media, some of the corporate press, and Stefanovic to keep bringing the PM’s lies to the public’s attention.

Featured image via Sky News – YouTube

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  • Show Comments

    1. If they have to dress for business, why don’t they also have to behave as they would in a business meeting with their bosses and colleagues present? Why doesn’t he ban heckling and jeering intended to drown out what a speaker is saying and making it hard to record? Or doesn’t Lindsay Hoyle command the respect other speakers have had?

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    2. Who really cares anymore, as with the media, bankers and now our once great Parliament House, it is all but a joke. The population is disinterested, dis-enfranchised and distrusting of all of the above…. Broken toryland Britain ..

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    3. “This is Breadline Britain
      This free and promised land
      Where the rich don’t give a damn
      People getting hungry and people getting poor
      People getting destitute and more

      This is Breadline Britain
      Oh you’ve got to understand
      Where evil’s in command
      Where money buys only pipe dreams
      And a worker’s life is damned
      Democracy and freedom are a
      Far off foreign land

      Where the sick don’t stand a chance
      Where fascism leads a new dance
      Where they’d privatize your mother
      If given half a chance

      This is Breadline Britain
      You’ve got to make a stand
      Breadline, breadline, breadline Britain
      Breadline breadline, breadline Britain
      This free and promised land”

      Report comment

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