While Blair, Whitty, Jenny Harries, Daniel Craig and Emma Raducanu all lapped up honours on New Year’s Eve, Guido’s come to understand one name was deliberately absent from the list: co-conspirator favourite AC Grayling. A government source has come forward to reveal the loony anti-Brexit professor had been recommended for a knighthood, only for advisors to take one look at the suggestion and veto it. A government source elaborates:
“From Prime Ministers to paramedics, the honours system rewards the best of Britain and highlights our common history and shared achievement as a nation. However, people who have spent the last few years attacking this country and spreading increasingly erratic fake news about it should not be recognised in the same way as sports stars and scientists.”
Hopefully this news should act as a spoonful of sugar to help Sir Tony’s gong go down…
Starmer is so keen to audition for the role of PM he’s now forgetting his speech mid-way through. Guido’s just glad he hadn’t recently visited Peppa Pig World…
Meanwhile, local Tories have pointed out to Guido that Starmer’s visit to Birmingham is incorporating just two constituencies: Ladywood and Yardley, which have 28,000 and 10,000 majorities respectively. An interesting location strategy for a party supposedly on the cusp of reclaiming the Red Wall…
Following the announcement of Tony Blair’s knighthood on New Year’s Eve – which has already seen over 500,000 sign a petition to strip him of the gong – Shadow Education Secretary Wes Streeting heaped praise on the award:
Congratulations to Sir Tony Blair, but I know he’ll be even more proud that @ValerieAmos, a personal hero of mine and so many others, has become - yet again - a trailblazer. So many firsts in her career, beating a path for others to follow. A totally inspirational woman. https://t.co/mVGc7JH2rR
— Wes Streeting MP (@wesstreeting) December 31, 2021
Immediately, left-wing critics of Wes pointed out his views had seemingly done a 180-degree U-turn since 2010, when he tweeted that Blair should be “tried at the Hague for the various war crimes to his sordid name”.
This would be a startling change of attitude towards the former PM, had he not outed none other than Owen Jones as the author of said tweet back at Labour Party conference 2021.
Thankfully for Tony, his knightly successor Sir Keir has defended his New Year award, telling GMB this morning he deserves the honour. This ain’t no Blair ditch project…
Over 100 days on the job and vaccines minister Maggie Throup finally made her first media round appearance this morning to discuss the booster rollout. Having last appeared on national television on 2nd December for a botched Question Time showing – where the audience laughed at her for insisting “all guidance was perfectly followed” over Downing Street’s lockdown drinks – Guido was beginning to wonder if she’d gone into winter hibernation. Asked by LBC’s Nick Ferrari why she was practically invisible compared to her predecessor Nadhim Zahawi, Throup insisted she’d “done lots of media interviews”:
“I’ve been very busy, I’ve done lots of different media…I’ve been on LBC before, I was on one Sunday, I’ve done lots of media interviews, so it’s always good to be on. And you know, it’s such a great day to be on, with this anniversary of the AstraZeneca [rollout]…”
Throup also appeared on Sky News this morning, where she confessed she couldn’t give a figure for how many hospitals are declaring critical incidents because “it is fast-moving [and] it would be wrong of me to say a number”. So much for looking at the data ‘hour by hour’ then.
The ink was barely dry on the Sleazegate saga before another scandal hit Westminster. In the first week of the month, reports claimed Boris had broken lockdown rules by hosting – or attending – a series of parties in Downing Street last Christmas. After fierce denials from No. 10, including from Boris at the despatch box, the story blew up when ITV revealed footage of Allegra Stratton and Downing Street aides joking on-camera about the very parties Number 10 claimed never happened. Questions over whose head would roll for all this were quickly answered when Allegra Stratton resigned the very next day…
Details of more parties emerged, including a photo of Boris taking part in a Zoom quiz with multiple aides, and Shaun Bailey resigned after hosting a large gathering at CCHQ while London was in Tier 2. Guido’s footage of Jacob Rees-Mogg joking about the allegations soon went viral, racking up millions of views across several publications in just three days. Meanwhile the fallout from the sleaze row culminated in the staggering loss of North Shropshire to the LibDems with a 34% swing…
However, arguably the most damning moment came when Guido exclusively revealed that Cabinet Secretary Simon Case – the man trusted to investigate all this – had himself known of at least one party hosted in his 70 Whitehall office last Christmas. The story got worldwide coverage from almost all major outlets, and Simon was taken off the case in favour of Whitehall bulldog Sue Gray. A woman much more feared by Whitehall’s partiers than Simon Case…
Covid returned to the headlines once again as Omicron cases surged across the UK. Although mounting evidence appeared to show that the new strain is less deadly than previous variants – albeit more transmissible – nerves fluttered in both Whitehall and the devolved administrations. Guido revealed that Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford was so keen to ruin Christmas that he privately called for a total lockdown between the 25th and the New Year. Ultimately, the four countries of the UK each opted for different approaches. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all saw the loathed restrictions return, while England soldiered on under ‘Plan B’, which introduced pointless vaccine passports and a mask mandate, although at least kept everything open. All it took was 102 Tory Covid rebels – Boris’s largest yet…
Meanwhile there was massive end-of-year churn in the media: Andrew Marr, Adam Boulton, and Jon Snow all left their respective shows, Laura Kuenssberg confirmed her departure as BBC PolEd in April, and Stephen Bush jumped from the New Statesman to FT. Darren Grimes also announced he is joining GB News.
It wasn’t all bad news on Covid, though. December saw Labour MP Zarah Sultana finally overcome her debilitating fear of maskless crowds when attending the glitzy MOBO Awards with thousands of fellow unmasked guests. It was an admirable turnaround for Zarah, who just weeks earlier had revealed how unmasked Tories made her “feel unsafe” in the Commons, and claimed the mask debate was “purely ideological“. Guido’s inclined to agree on that one.
Happy New Year, and here’s to 2022…
Honourable mentions:
- Michel Barnier Knocked Out of Republican Primary Race in First Round
- EXCLUSIVE: Home Office Scrap Domino’s for Migrants
- Shahmir Sanni Accused of Sexist Verbal Abuse Towards Sam Smith Fan
Headline of the month: Voters Deservedly Punishing Tories
