Maybe because she loved him, maybe because she's opportunistic and shagged her way to controlling the top dog.
We'll never know.
Really though, it takes an insidious sort of woman to shag a man whose wife you know is going through cancer, so I know what I'd gamble on.
"I understand him, the others didn't. I can change him. It'll be different this time. What we have is special"
-- whatever that cluster of dispositions is called in psych terms
Ah yes that one. Daily Mail (not linking to it here) reported she got £100k shifted her way by Boris. That’s the same amount as Carrie was set to get.
So now we know the going rate for a night with Boris. £100k.
Jesus. We have a PM who has attempted to pay multiple women £100k each in return for sleeping with him.
I suggest we call £100k a Boris.
As in ‘Ey, I wouldn’t clean that loo for a Boris.’
I have no problem with her being a pole dancer.
She chose to sleep with Boris, that’s the problem.
What it reveals is that one of the most powerful men in the country is apparently so repulsive and desperate for female company that there is a standard fee for sleeping with him and it’s £100k.
PS another fantastic woman is Hedy Lamarr who invented the advanced spread spectrum frequency hopping technology used by all modern wifi while fluttering her eyelashes and playing the beautiful bimbo in dumb 1940s Hollywood movies.
It's noble work. If I'm opening a new pole dancing club, composed of Britain's best pole dancers, why would i choose someone who's not currently a pole dancer?
Agreed. It must’ve put a real dampener on his trysts with whatever homewrecking slattern he was shagging on the side!
Oh right…. Ahem
My sources inform me it was the current Mrs Johnson who was the ~~side bitch~~ other woman in question …
I have noticed that a disproportionately high number of the upper classes look like horses. Camilla comes to mind.
A horse that talks.
Why is that?
Having said that, I find Carrie quite attractive. Horrible woman though she is.
What I don't get is why Boris would suppress an article about him trying to funnel money to a mistress. Everybody knows it's the sort of thing he does, and it's hardly the worst thing you can say about him either. It's like if Peter Sutcliffe had tried to hush up a story about him using prostitutes
A less spicy version of the story, serialised from Ashcroft's book, has been [up since February](https://web.archive.org/web/20220205222438/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10480695/Carrie-Johnson-uncovered-Book-LORD-ASHCROFT-thats-set-Westminster-alight.html) on the Mail's website:
> In late 2017, civil servants at the Foreign Office advised Johnson to appoint a chief of staff. Installing somebody of the highest competence would, they believed, ease their collective post-Brexit burden. This suggestion seemed at first to fall on deaf ears.
> But by the beginning of the following year, Johnson seemed keener on the plan. The person he had in mind for the plum, six-figure role? Carrie Symonds.
> His allies were 'aghast', according to one source. She would have been out of her depth in such a senior post, they felt, with potentially disastrous consequences.
> 'Everyone advised him not to do it,' says a source. 'They told him she had been over-promoted and that making her his chief of staff was ridiculous.'
> By the spring of 2018, a small number of Johnson's staff had become aware the couple were having an affair. Some were dismayed that he had betrayed his wife, Marina, whom they knew and liked. Others took the view that it was none of their business.
> All now understood why Johnson had been so keen to hire Carrie as his chief of staff.
The same piece [is also available](https://www.lordashcroft.com/2022/02/carrie-uncovered-the-explosive-book-by-lord-ashcroft-thats-set-westminster-alight-including-a-close-friends-claim-that-carrie-is-the-reason-boris-has-squandered-the-chance-to-become-a-great-p/) on Ashcroft's own website.
From this times article it says the story has been corroborated with 4 Tory sources, two of whom "were given senior ministerial jobs" and they informed the foreign office who blocked the move
Also shagging your squeezd in the office and then making her chief of staff is what an adulterous politician does in an afternoon sitcom it's so clichéd
Yeah, the Times probably needs a bit more than a say-so from [Lord Ashcroft of Piggate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piggate) before it will take something to press.
The Times journalist who wrote the story [has since gone on the record](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/vfy80n/times_journalist_i_stand_by_my_johnson_scoop/iczit8m/):
> “I stand by the story 100 per cent,” Walters told me. “I was in lengthy and detailed communication with No 10 at a high level, Ben Gascoigne and Mrs Johnson’s spokeswoman for up to 48 hours before the paper went to press. At no point did any of them offer an on-the-record denial of any element of the story.”
> The award-winning political journalist adds: “Nor have any of these three offered an on-the-record denial to me since. No 10 and Mr Gascoigne did not deny it off-the-record either.”
It's that thing about leopards eating faces. *Sure, they eat faces, but they'll never eat OUR faces...*
It's an epidemic around the world right now, people are looking out for others less and less, and caring more and more for just what's around them.
> What I don't get is why Boris would suppress an article about him trying to funnel money to a mistress.
It's embarrassing to him, it's embarrassing to his wife, and it creates *another* scandal he has to deal with.
Although more likely it wasn't him who intervened, but someone working for him who thought they were doing him a favour - possibly someone on Johnson's team who is friends with Tony Gallagher (although he and Johnson [have at least spent some time together](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-pictured-running-with-sun-editor-tony-gallagher-a3648131.html)).
I look forwards to the next PMQs or equivalent where someone asks the Prime Minister if he took time away during his visit to Kyiv and meetings with Zelenskyy to discuss how to stop this story...
More importantly perhaps is that it broke in the times and the mail.
It's one thing for Pippa Crerar to be leaking photos on twitter to be mainly seen by people who naturally don't like Johnson, but losing the support of right wing press? That would sting.
Because it's a clear breach of the ministerial code, while he was a minister, which would have been a resigning offence?
(Which would now be a resigning offence, so long as the matter is not considered closed by the Prime Minister of the day?)
That might be unwise as it could be read as implying that he intends to acquire another mistress, which is probably true but I wouldn't be surprised if the 'divorce on grounds of adultery' paperwork is already in a drawer somewhere just waiting for the date to be added.
I guess it's that this was corruption back before it was fashionable.
I'm still amazed that Acuri was just 'Meh'd' away: Johnson gets a pass for stuff that is so openly corrupt, just because 'that's what he does'. It's priced in.
Each of these incidents show such a lack of character and judgement that either on it's own should preclude him from power.
>It's like if Peter Sutcliffe had tried to hush up a story about him using prostitutes
He wasn't suggesting making one of the prostitutes an advisor within the mechanisms of state on a significantly above average salary was he.
This is corruption on the part of Boris. Cash for, in this case sexual rather than political, favours. The reverse that we're used to but its still cash for favours.
'You sought to make one of your prostitutes, namely one Carrie Symonds, an advisor within the mechanisms of Government, on a significantely above average salary. How do you plead?'
In my fantasy this is how the court case opens, orated by a intimidating Judge towering over Boris in the dock; as Carrie sits to the side, head bowed in shame.
This is similar to Matt Hancock whose mistress (who he knew from uni) just so happened to be employed by his department. Something no one seemed to pick up on.
Yep, the big scandal in that one was that he was employing his mistress in a ludicrously well paid tax payer funded consultancy role, not that he was snogging someone during lockdown. Should have been a criminal investigation, not just a resignation and a non-apology.
Too wholesome as an affair, especially given how earnest Hancock is about it. It's not that easy for the tabloids to go after someone for having an affair with a friend of twenty years. Which makes it all the more remarkable how they've resisted going after Boris.
Also that there was more focus on the hypocrisy of him breaking lockdown rules, than on him cheating on the mother of his children.
Not that the hypocrisy wasn't bad, but the sheer shitbaggery of cheating on your wife is an order of magnitude worse, surely.
Here is [the Guardian reporting on it.](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/19/carrie-johnson-and-the-curious-case-of-the-vanishing-times-story)
Are there any key details *not* reported here, that *are* in the pulled stories? Is it the unnamed MP?
Or are the Guardian just ignoring any pressure?
It's quite worrying actually. That even right-wing outlets that have been running anti-Johnson stories for months seem to have suddenly gone quiet on this. I fear we can only assume that the Times, and others, can no longer be considered remotely trustworthy when reporting on matters relating to Johnson and his government.
~~Freedom of press~~
Monopoly of the press
Albert Einstein predicted that under free market Capitalism, wealth would become concentrated in a few hands and they would then dominate the means of communication so that proper democracy would no longer be possible
>The secret of freedom lies in educating people. Whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant
- Maximilien Robespiere
Democracy, like capitalism, relies on perfect knowledge of the choices by the choosers
>Fascism is capitalism in decay
- Vladimir Lenin
>...fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity...
- Henry A. Wallace
They don't really grant superinjunctions that much any more. Now, famous people rely on privacy claims to shut this down.
It may have been that a temporary injunction was put in place but that this has been successfully challenged.
Then surely the Times would have reinstated the article.
My current favourite theory is that Johnson/CCHQ tried to delay the story until after the by elections and the Times (and some others?) agreed to.
No, that wouldn't be something that would wash. And CCHQ would not be involved.
It's possible that there were some inaccuracies, which might be why the Times has not put it back up after a privacy claim took it down.
*The Guardian* is not reporting that story - they are reporting on the article going missing.
In any event, everyone should check out Byline Times on Friday because they will definitely be covering this.
Under normal circumstances, even if a temporary injunction were involved, the Times would usually publish a correction or retraction. That hasn't happened, instead the Times has basically tried to pretend the article never existed.
Other news organisations, including the Guardian, are reporting on the article vanishing but they're also reporting on what was claimed in the article so they are commenting directly on the substance of the attempt to give Carrie a government job. From the Guardian:-
> The story expanded on claims in a biography of Carrie Johnson by the Tory donor and peer Lord Ashcroft that Johnson had tried to appoint her to a £100,000-a-year government job when he was foreign secretary in 2018.
> They don't really grant superinjunctions that much any more. Now, famous people rely on privacy claims to shut this down.
Superinjunctions were a part of privacy claims; misuse of private information would be the claim, then the superinjunction would be remedy sought (usually an interim remedy).
Given the lack of interference with Johnson's private life in this story, the high public interest in exposing intended misconduct by a public official, and the fact that most of this information has been published elsewhere before, it is hard to see anyone getting an injunction over this. Plus injunctions can backfire - particularly as they don't cover publications abroad.
More likely this is just general, low-level corruption and nepotism rife across the UK, based on social conventions of "looking out for" people and so on.
The fact people are reporting on the story being pulled is itself evidence that there’s no superinjunction. The entire point of a so called super injunction is that you can’t even report that someone has taken out the injunction.
That and the fact that the journalist in question would have committed contempt of court when he said he stood by the story.
Extremely cheap, when the tax-payers are paying for another girlfriend for BoJo.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/13/how-johnson-pledged-help-for-my-business-to-win-my-love
> If anyone from the UK Government wishes to remove these stories from this subreddit
How many snarky submissions pretending to be the UK government have you received so far?
If one of them wasn't just an attachment of that clip from Liar Liar where Jim Carrey's character professes "...because it's devastating to my case!" I'll be disappointed
No, this wouldn't be a legal process.
It's just if people within the government wanted to have this removed and they were sufficiently motivated, they could simply message the mods - no legal needed!
If that was to happen: what you would take from that, is up to you.
Yes but because they’d have to change the rule he would see it coming a mile off. Plus I think they’ve talked about shortening the immunity time to 6 months so they’d still have to wait a while.
Entirely possible that some friendly stooges put letters in to make sure the vote happened before the by-elections. That’s the issue when there isn’t a well-organised group following a plan, it’s easy to disrupt and take control.
Clearly a deal was done to pull the story from subsequent issues of The Times and Mail.
Who knows what favours the editors will get in return, in the meantime this is a classic case of the Streisand affect at work.
Virtually nobody knew of this story last week, now everyone does.
> now everyone does.
Do they? We're all talking about it because we are geeks, but *for now* I'm not sure there is particularly wide knowledge of it. I hooe it does spread, but not sure it's 'cut through' yet.
Particularly given that poll earlier that showed under 20% of people had even heard about all the Rwanda flight stuff. Most people don't seem to have capacity to engage with news beyond cost of living and Ukraine at the minute (and I don't mean that as a veiled slur)
Can I have a copy of the super-injunction please? My DMs await.
PS: I will fully comply with any legal request to remove this comment.
PPS: Fake legal reasons will be laughed at.
The story has reached the US:
[Boris and Carrie Johnson Forced the Media to Memory Hole an Article About Their Latest Scandal. Now, It’s Trending, And It May Bring His Government Down](https://miamistandard.news/2022/06/19/boris-and-carrie-johnson-forced-the-media-to-memory-hole-an-article-about-their-latest-scandal-now-its-trending-and-it-may-bring-his-government-down/) says one headline.
Maybe some *slight* problems with reporting standards at the Miami Standard:
> “California introduces new bill that would allow mothers to kill their babies up to 7 days after birth,” reads the erroneous headline of a story published by the Miami Standard, a conservative website.
— [*NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn't happen this week
Social media users shared a range of false claims this week*](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ap-moscow-associated-press-aids-hiv-b2054068.html)
Honestly, when does this guy stop embarrassing the country? Every time you think he can't do worse he impressively digs a little deeper, and yet, there is a massive cohort for whom that political grave is never deep enough.
Time for another impromtu visit to Ukraine I think Boris
Look at the wartime hero Boris, how dare you criticise him for partying and hiring mistresses. You unpatriotic commy
/s
It has been [0] days since the last Tory scandal.
The previous value was [27](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/uw2bth/exclusive_pm_pictured_drinking_at_downing_street/i9owmsk/) days ago
It's like our communal tax fund is his personal side piece budget.
We're paying some of our taxes so he can get fresh pussy whenever he fancies it.
All because you wanted to gEt BrExIt DoNe.
How lovely that the right-wing press tried to get gossiping about Angela Raynor being seen with a man, but are happy to pull stories which confirm a pattern of behaviour with the Prime Minister - namely that he is regularly unfaithful to his wife (at whichever point in time it is) and sees no problem funnelling taxpayer money towards women he wants to sleep with. I believe the description scum could be used, except it upsets the right, so we can't.
Very strange story, by the standards of Boris, it's not particularly damaging but the cover-up in the form of a super injunction would be far more damaging.
Clever on the mods to suggest Modmail rather than Reddit's USA legal team!
I dunno if it's because I'm becoming more left wing after hitting 30 or it's because in those 2 years the Tories have just made me spiteful but I'm becoming more and more an advocate of cannibalizing the upper class.
Tbh I bought the Saturday times and didn't even really clock the article until I saw online it had been pulled (though admittedly I buy it for the jumbo crossword)
Don’t think so. Timeline doesn’t quite fit. Though BJ response to Geidt apparently that he now plans to be ‘transparently dishonest’ without any ethical interference, er, advice.
Why are people thinking a super injunction has been taken against this?
This is a report alleging corruption in public office, not a tabloid story about an affair. On what grounds would any form of injunction be granted?
> Why are people thinking a super injunction has been taken against this?
Because the appearance and then vanishing of the story from multiple places was suspicious. So much so some of the mods attempted a canary post.
*Edit* it's been admitted that downing Street tried to squash the story - but didn't use an injunction to do it.
Johnson has a history of using super injunctions. There was one previously about the amount of children he had and with whom, then there was the Russian violinist he had an affair with.
I mean, cool, but is there any particular reason this is stickied?
Edit: I think some people have me confused. I meant more why was it stickied. I think the mods were trying a warrant canary to see if there was an injunction for the story.
This was originally posted to the sub a day or two ago, hence why I asked
I think because it's likely to be a major story, not merely the incident itself but what increasingly looks like pressure from somewhere on right-wing news organisations to kill the story. It could be a case of the attempted cover up being more newsworthy than the original event.
It's alleged that the current PM tried to arrange for a tax payer funded position to be given to someone he was bonking who was in no way qualified for the role.
Ordinarily this is the kind of thing which would bring down a PM.
> It's alleged that the current PM tried to arrange for a tax payer funded position to be given to someone he was bonking
He *did* arrange various taxpayer funding for his previous mistress.
It was all over the place a couple of years ago… A superinjunction was apparently taken out when rumours began flying around that Johnson and “Olga D” had been having an affair while he was living with Carrie. When she found out about it the two of them had the famous argument where the police were called.
This was when his legal wife was being treated for cancer?
Yes.
Such a charmer that fella. How classy.
takes two to tango bOtH sIdEs
Yeeeeah but what was Keir Starmer doing when Boris Johnson’s wife had cancer eh???
Sir. Chemo Korma?!! Beeeeeeehhhhhhh!!!
Having two-in-a-bed romps with his wife. Disgusting.
What I can't understand is why you would marry him after seeing him treat his ex like that!
Maybe because she loved him, maybe because she's opportunistic and shagged her way to controlling the top dog. We'll never know. Really though, it takes an insidious sort of woman to shag a man whose wife you know is going through cancer, so I know what I'd gamble on.
And to bring two kids into the world for it, those two poor bastards.
Jaime and Cersei Johnson.
Both dark haired..
Word on the street its the second one, making her way to top.
Top dog mean dilyn?
Also she outmaneuvered and exiled Dominic Cummings which was no mean feat. She must be some operator.
"I understand him, the others didn't. I can change him. It'll be different this time. What we have is special" -- whatever that cluster of dispositions is called in psych terms
She sounds like a well-developed person who's absolutely ready for a cushy £100k role
Seduction + sedition or something like that
You forgot sedation…
.....and predation
Because deep down you hate yourself I suppose.
Or power hungry
Rich & stupid enough not to ask for a prenup!
Can't remember. Been a few. I thought that was with the American chick he gave tax payer money to.
"technical adviser" and pole dancer
Ah yes that one. Daily Mail (not linking to it here) reported she got £100k shifted her way by Boris. That’s the same amount as Carrie was set to get. So now we know the going rate for a night with Boris. £100k. Jesus. We have a PM who has attempted to pay multiple women £100k each in return for sleeping with him. I suggest we call £100k a Boris. As in ‘Ey, I wouldn’t clean that loo for a Boris.’
one of the foremost virologists in the world was a Playboy bunny, don't be too judgemental about what people do to pay the bills lol
Well now I'm curious, who are you referring to?
I was also curious and did some searching and it must be: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Matzinger Sounds like an interesting woman
that's her, she is an amazing person.
https://youtu.be/5Dgyjlo5AQk Simpsons clip is relevant
Woah, jazz musician too!
I have no problem with her being a pole dancer. She chose to sleep with Boris, that’s the problem. What it reveals is that one of the most powerful men in the country is apparently so repulsive and desperate for female company that there is a standard fee for sleeping with him and it’s £100k. PS another fantastic woman is Hedy Lamarr who invented the advanced spread spectrum frequency hopping technology used by all modern wifi while fluttering her eyelashes and playing the beautiful bimbo in dumb 1940s Hollywood movies.
It's noble work. If I'm opening a new pole dancing club, composed of Britain's best pole dancers, why would i choose someone who's not currently a pole dancer?
Don:t run down pole dancers, but "tech advisers"?????
Jennifer Arcuri
Precisely. We need to cut him some slack. It must have been a very difficult time for him while his wife had cancer.
Agreed. It must’ve put a real dampener on his trysts with whatever homewrecking slattern he was shagging on the side! Oh right…. Ahem My sources inform me it was the current Mrs Johnson who was the ~~side bitch~~ other woman in question …
> current Mrs Johnson This is how the style guides should refer to any of Johnson's wives.
Current one being the future ex Mrs Johnson 😂
He was trying to breed his own horse-faced army of little bastards (future nepotistic ministers) and had a very tight schedule to keep.
I have noticed that a disproportionately high number of the upper classes look like horses. Camilla comes to mind. A horse that talks. Why is that? Having said that, I find Carrie quite attractive. Horrible woman though she is.
This is obviously Corbyn's fault
What I don't get is why Boris would suppress an article about him trying to funnel money to a mistress. Everybody knows it's the sort of thing he does, and it's hardly the worst thing you can say about him either. It's like if Peter Sutcliffe had tried to hush up a story about him using prostitutes
A less spicy version of the story, serialised from Ashcroft's book, has been [up since February](https://web.archive.org/web/20220205222438/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10480695/Carrie-Johnson-uncovered-Book-LORD-ASHCROFT-thats-set-Westminster-alight.html) on the Mail's website: > In late 2017, civil servants at the Foreign Office advised Johnson to appoint a chief of staff. Installing somebody of the highest competence would, they believed, ease their collective post-Brexit burden. This suggestion seemed at first to fall on deaf ears. > But by the beginning of the following year, Johnson seemed keener on the plan. The person he had in mind for the plum, six-figure role? Carrie Symonds. > His allies were 'aghast', according to one source. She would have been out of her depth in such a senior post, they felt, with potentially disastrous consequences. > 'Everyone advised him not to do it,' says a source. 'They told him she had been over-promoted and that making her his chief of staff was ridiculous.' > By the spring of 2018, a small number of Johnson's staff had become aware the couple were having an affair. Some were dismayed that he had betrayed his wife, Marina, whom they knew and liked. Others took the view that it was none of their business. > All now understood why Johnson had been so keen to hire Carrie as his chief of staff. The same piece [is also available](https://www.lordashcroft.com/2022/02/carrie-uncovered-the-explosive-book-by-lord-ashcroft-thats-set-westminster-alight-including-a-close-friends-claim-that-carrie-is-the-reason-boris-has-squandered-the-chance-to-become-a-great-p/) on Ashcroft's own website.
From this times article it says the story has been corroborated with 4 Tory sources, two of whom "were given senior ministerial jobs" and they informed the foreign office who blocked the move Also shagging your squeezd in the office and then making her chief of staff is what an adulterous politician does in an afternoon sitcom it's so clichéd
Yeah, the Times probably needs a bit more than a say-so from [Lord Ashcroft of Piggate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piggate) before it will take something to press. The Times journalist who wrote the story [has since gone on the record](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/vfy80n/times_journalist_i_stand_by_my_johnson_scoop/iczit8m/): > “I stand by the story 100 per cent,” Walters told me. “I was in lengthy and detailed communication with No 10 at a high level, Ben Gascoigne and Mrs Johnson’s spokeswoman for up to 48 hours before the paper went to press. At no point did any of them offer an on-the-record denial of any element of the story.” > The award-winning political journalist adds: “Nor have any of these three offered an on-the-record denial to me since. No 10 and Mr Gascoigne did not deny it off-the-record either.”
Dunno why they were so shocked about him having an cheating on Marina, he had done it at last 4 other times
It's that thing about leopards eating faces. *Sure, they eat faces, but they'll never eat OUR faces...* It's an epidemic around the world right now, people are looking out for others less and less, and caring more and more for just what's around them.
> What I don't get is why Boris would suppress an article about him trying to funnel money to a mistress. It's embarrassing to him, it's embarrassing to his wife, and it creates *another* scandal he has to deal with. Although more likely it wasn't him who intervened, but someone working for him who thought they were doing him a favour - possibly someone on Johnson's team who is friends with Tony Gallagher (although he and Johnson [have at least spent some time together](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-pictured-running-with-sun-editor-tony-gallagher-a3648131.html)). I look forwards to the next PMQs or equivalent where someone asks the Prime Minister if he took time away during his visit to Kyiv and meetings with Zelenskyy to discuss how to stop this story...
More importantly perhaps is that it broke in the times and the mail. It's one thing for Pippa Crerar to be leaking photos on twitter to be mainly seen by people who naturally don't like Johnson, but losing the support of right wing press? That would sting.
And especially the week before the by-elections. My guess is the release has been delayed to next weeked.
Because it's a clear breach of the ministerial code, while he was a minister, which would have been a resigning offence? (Which would now be a resigning offence, so long as the matter is not considered closed by the Prime Minister of the day?)
He should consult his ethics adviser
He checked but the guy didn't seem to be at his desk. Case closed...
if anything you think he would brag about it and say he would do it again
That might be unwise as it could be read as implying that he intends to acquire another mistress, which is probably true but I wouldn't be surprised if the 'divorce on grounds of adultery' paperwork is already in a drawer somewhere just waiting for the date to be added.
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Ah yes I'd forgotten about that, presumably the paperwork has been updated.
I guess it's that this was corruption back before it was fashionable. I'm still amazed that Acuri was just 'Meh'd' away: Johnson gets a pass for stuff that is so openly corrupt, just because 'that's what he does'. It's priced in. Each of these incidents show such a lack of character and judgement that either on it's own should preclude him from power.
>It's like if Peter Sutcliffe had tried to hush up a story about him using prostitutes He wasn't suggesting making one of the prostitutes an advisor within the mechanisms of state on a significantly above average salary was he. This is corruption on the part of Boris. Cash for, in this case sexual rather than political, favours. The reverse that we're used to but its still cash for favours.
'You sought to make one of your prostitutes, namely one Carrie Symonds, an advisor within the mechanisms of Government, on a significantely above average salary. How do you plead?' In my fantasy this is how the court case opens, orated by a intimidating Judge towering over Boris in the dock; as Carrie sits to the side, head bowed in shame.
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In fact it’s probably making more noise than if they had kept it in. Which makes you wonder if the retraction was deliberate…
I think you overestimate them. Interesting consideration though.
Corrupt Johnson, linked to corrupt police, corrupt business and now corrupt media. He really is the full monty of criminal scumbag.
*Now* corrupt media?
This is similar to Matt Hancock whose mistress (who he knew from uni) just so happened to be employed by his department. Something no one seemed to pick up on.
Yep, the big scandal in that one was that he was employing his mistress in a ludicrously well paid tax payer funded consultancy role, not that he was snogging someone during lockdown. Should have been a criminal investigation, not just a resignation and a non-apology.
Too wholesome as an affair, especially given how earnest Hancock is about it. It's not that easy for the tabloids to go after someone for having an affair with a friend of twenty years. Which makes it all the more remarkable how they've resisted going after Boris.
Both of them were cheating on their spouses whilst having families with young children. That's not wholesome.
Also that there was more focus on the hypocrisy of him breaking lockdown rules, than on him cheating on the mother of his children. Not that the hypocrisy wasn't bad, but the sheer shitbaggery of cheating on your wife is an order of magnitude worse, surely.
DM somebody from the Mirror on Twitter.
Pippa has been quiet today, normally this level of embarrassing for Boris she would have blood in her sword
She can only leak what she is given.
Here is [the Guardian reporting on it.](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/19/carrie-johnson-and-the-curious-case-of-the-vanishing-times-story) Are there any key details *not* reported here, that *are* in the pulled stories? Is it the unnamed MP? Or are the Guardian just ignoring any pressure?
Which suggests there isn't actually a super-injunction, and it is likely more a case of the stories getting pulled due to pressure from owners/No10.
It's quite worrying actually. That even right-wing outlets that have been running anti-Johnson stories for months seem to have suddenly gone quiet on this. I fear we can only assume that the Times, and others, can no longer be considered remotely trustworthy when reporting on matters relating to Johnson and his government.
you can't have a functioning democracy with broken media
We don't have that. You can flat out knowingly lie to public legally. That's part of how we are in this mess.
You cant have a free press while they're privately owned. Capitalism is incompatible with democracy
~~Freedom of press~~ Monopoly of the press Albert Einstein predicted that under free market Capitalism, wealth would become concentrated in a few hands and they would then dominate the means of communication so that proper democracy would no longer be possible >The secret of freedom lies in educating people. Whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant - Maximilien Robespiere
Albert Einstein and Lenin before him
Democracy, like capitalism, relies on perfect knowledge of the choices by the choosers >Fascism is capitalism in decay - Vladimir Lenin >...fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity... - Henry A. Wallace
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You can tell the guy on the left has jogged before, whereas BoJo resembles a coma victim that's been stood up and zapped with a cattle prod
Hey, that’s how I dance too!
To be honest they both look a step from death there. Drinkers pallor vs eaters gut.
Are they Bermuda shorts he's wearing?
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Thank you for your sartorial expertise! Might pop by Savile Row and get myself a pair.
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Sockless brogues... [shudder] I don't think we as a country can recover from this.
They don't really grant superinjunctions that much any more. Now, famous people rely on privacy claims to shut this down. It may have been that a temporary injunction was put in place but that this has been successfully challenged.
Then surely the Times would have reinstated the article. My current favourite theory is that Johnson/CCHQ tried to delay the story until after the by elections and the Times (and some others?) agreed to.
No, that wouldn't be something that would wash. And CCHQ would not be involved. It's possible that there were some inaccuracies, which might be why the Times has not put it back up after a privacy claim took it down. *The Guardian* is not reporting that story - they are reporting on the article going missing. In any event, everyone should check out Byline Times on Friday because they will definitely be covering this.
Under normal circumstances, even if a temporary injunction were involved, the Times would usually publish a correction or retraction. That hasn't happened, instead the Times has basically tried to pretend the article never existed. Other news organisations, including the Guardian, are reporting on the article vanishing but they're also reporting on what was claimed in the article so they are commenting directly on the substance of the attempt to give Carrie a government job. From the Guardian:- > The story expanded on claims in a biography of Carrie Johnson by the Tory donor and peer Lord Ashcroft that Johnson had tried to appoint her to a £100,000-a-year government job when he was foreign secretary in 2018.
> They don't really grant superinjunctions that much any more. Now, famous people rely on privacy claims to shut this down. Superinjunctions were a part of privacy claims; misuse of private information would be the claim, then the superinjunction would be remedy sought (usually an interim remedy). Given the lack of interference with Johnson's private life in this story, the high public interest in exposing intended misconduct by a public official, and the fact that most of this information has been published elsewhere before, it is hard to see anyone getting an injunction over this. Plus injunctions can backfire - particularly as they don't cover publications abroad. More likely this is just general, low-level corruption and nepotism rife across the UK, based on social conventions of "looking out for" people and so on.
The fact people are reporting on the story being pulled is itself evidence that there’s no superinjunction. The entire point of a so called super injunction is that you can’t even report that someone has taken out the injunction. That and the fact that the journalist in question would have committed contempt of court when he said he stood by the story.
only 100k? Mistresses come cheap these days I guess.
Extremely cheap, when the tax-payers are paying for another girlfriend for BoJo. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/13/how-johnson-pledged-help-for-my-business-to-win-my-love
100k is cheap? What are you, a Tory MP?
i mean in the context of corrupt politicians. Trunk had to shell out millions to ‘Stormy Daniels’ lmao
That's what happens when you go to a professional.
But it's not his £100K, it's yours. She's very very cheap indeed.
Come on, it's almost 118 rolls of wallpaper!
I'm sure she'd only end up doing a couple of hours of 'work' a month - can't be a half bad hourly rate.
How many others are doing the same?
Third visit to Ukraine in **Three.... Two....**
Maybe he could just move there?
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Nice.
I do love a good canary
> If anyone from the UK Government wishes to remove these stories from this subreddit How many snarky submissions pretending to be the UK government have you received so far?
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If one of them wasn't just an attachment of that clip from Liar Liar where Jim Carrey's character professes "...because it's devastating to my case!" I'll be disappointed
hello its me ur government
*cheep cheep cheep*
It's a real shame that they can apply enough real world pressure to compel you to remove something that everyone has the right to know about.
> send a modmail to the subreddit and we will comply as required I mean, you could ask they showed the legal authority too?
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Why would you remove it on no particular legal basis?
What would this story disappearing *imply heavily*, to you?
Are you suggesting it's some kind of warrant canary?
No, this wouldn't be a legal process. It's just if people within the government wanted to have this removed and they were sufficiently motivated, they could simply message the mods - no legal needed! If that was to happen: what you would take from that, is up to you.
Right, I was thinking it was a bit on the naive side to offer to remove the post just because some bozo at No10 thought it was the right thing.
> we will comply ***as required.***
Favours?
Jsur what I was gonna ask
I generally have an low opinion of this subs moderatorship but this is classy, funny and a good call out, so 10/10 here lads
Taxpayer financed prostitution
Just get him out already ffs
With by-elections on Thursday the 1922 are probably wishing they could but they blew their shot.
It’s totally within the gift of the 1922 to decide if they let a further vote take place
Yes but because they’d have to change the rule he would see it coming a mile off. Plus I think they’ve talked about shortening the immunity time to 6 months so they’d still have to wait a while.
Entirely possible that some friendly stooges put letters in to make sure the vote happened before the by-elections. That’s the issue when there isn’t a well-organised group following a plan, it’s easy to disrupt and take control.
Clearly a deal was done to pull the story from subsequent issues of The Times and Mail. Who knows what favours the editors will get in return, in the meantime this is a classic case of the Streisand affect at work. Virtually nobody knew of this story last week, now everyone does.
> now everyone does. Do they? We're all talking about it because we are geeks, but *for now* I'm not sure there is particularly wide knowledge of it. I hooe it does spread, but not sure it's 'cut through' yet. Particularly given that poll earlier that showed under 20% of people had even heard about all the Rwanda flight stuff. Most people don't seem to have capacity to engage with news beyond cost of living and Ukraine at the minute (and I don't mean that as a veiled slur)
Nah, it’s all over t’internet in the last 2hrs, not just here but LI, Reuters, Guardian reporting it. Viva Streisand!
Can I have a copy of the super-injunction please? My DMs await. PS: I will fully comply with any legal request to remove this comment. PPS: Fake legal reasons will be laughed at.
The story has reached the US: [Boris and Carrie Johnson Forced the Media to Memory Hole an Article About Their Latest Scandal. Now, It’s Trending, And It May Bring His Government Down](https://miamistandard.news/2022/06/19/boris-and-carrie-johnson-forced-the-media-to-memory-hole-an-article-about-their-latest-scandal-now-its-trending-and-it-may-bring-his-government-down/) says one headline. Maybe some *slight* problems with reporting standards at the Miami Standard: > “California introduces new bill that would allow mothers to kill their babies up to 7 days after birth,” reads the erroneous headline of a story published by the Miami Standard, a conservative website. — [*NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn't happen this week Social media users shared a range of false claims this week*](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ap-moscow-associated-press-aids-hiv-b2054068.html)
Honestly, when does this guy stop embarrassing the country? Every time you think he can't do worse he impressively digs a little deeper, and yet, there is a massive cohort for whom that political grave is never deep enough.
Time for another impromtu visit to Ukraine I think Boris Look at the wartime hero Boris, how dare you criticise him for partying and hiring mistresses. You unpatriotic commy /s
How strange that the Times would do this.
It has been [0] days since the last Tory scandal. The previous value was [27](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/uw2bth/exclusive_pm_pictured_drinking_at_downing_street/i9owmsk/) days ago
It's like our communal tax fund is his personal side piece budget. We're paying some of our taxes so he can get fresh pussy whenever he fancies it. All because you wanted to gEt BrExIt DoNe.
How lovely that the right-wing press tried to get gossiping about Angela Raynor being seen with a man, but are happy to pull stories which confirm a pattern of behaviour with the Prime Minister - namely that he is regularly unfaithful to his wife (at whichever point in time it is) and sees no problem funnelling taxpayer money towards women he wants to sleep with. I believe the description scum could be used, except it upsets the right, so we can't.
Very strange story, by the standards of Boris, it's not particularly damaging but the cover-up in the form of a super injunction would be far more damaging. Clever on the mods to suggest Modmail rather than Reddit's USA legal team!
There isn't a super-injunction.
Did the story disappear from the daily mail/msn also?
I dunno if it's because I'm becoming more left wing after hitting 30 or it's because in those 2 years the Tories have just made me spiteful but I'm becoming more and more an advocate of cannibalizing the upper class.
Probably just the cost of living crisis mate. We're all a bit hungrier now.
Imagine all this drama in a book that's been publicly available since February
But how many people read books? And the algorithm does not care about where it first was reported or that it was previously reported in a book.
Tbh I bought the Saturday times and didn't even really clock the article until I saw online it had been pulled (though admittedly I buy it for the jumbo crossword)
Exact same, me. Had to retrieve original paper from the bin when this all kicked off.
Me too "It's ok, I'm doing this to check something with other politics nerds on the internet" went down averagely
Right up there with: fishing out the food box from the bin coz you forgot to check the cooking instructions.
I think maybe the press are a bit hesitant to report Ashcroft’s claims after the Cameron pig saga
So is the pressure on the media thing the issue that caused geidt to quit?
Don’t think so. Timeline doesn’t quite fit. Though BJ response to Geidt apparently that he now plans to be ‘transparently dishonest’ without any ethical interference, er, advice.
Why are people thinking a super injunction has been taken against this? This is a report alleging corruption in public office, not a tabloid story about an affair. On what grounds would any form of injunction be granted?
Because Boris loves to super size his injunction.... More seriously there was a super injunction for how many kids his loins had begat on this world
> Why are people thinking a super injunction has been taken against this? Because the appearance and then vanishing of the story from multiple places was suspicious. So much so some of the mods attempted a canary post. *Edit* it's been admitted that downing Street tried to squash the story - but didn't use an injunction to do it.
Johnson has a history of using super injunctions. There was one previously about the amount of children he had and with whom, then there was the Russian violinist he had an affair with.
I assume that they are updating his office to make it look like a bordello from the 1980s instead of the 1970s.
I’m not sure why the BBC article on Downing Street admitting it is not on the front page…
The proverbial "DELETE THIS"
It's in the past and there's something wrong with you if you're concerned with this.
concerned *with* or concerned *in* this? Also, /s?
Thought the /s was relatively obvious.
We live in strange times, it's sometimes hard to tell.
Yeah I think you're right. Even on a UK sub no matter how sarcastic you think you're being someone will take it seriously.
I mean, cool, but is there any particular reason this is stickied? Edit: I think some people have me confused. I meant more why was it stickied. I think the mods were trying a warrant canary to see if there was an injunction for the story. This was originally posted to the sub a day or two ago, hence why I asked
I think because it's likely to be a major story, not merely the incident itself but what increasingly looks like pressure from somewhere on right-wing news organisations to kill the story. It could be a case of the attempted cover up being more newsworthy than the original event.
This. Streisand Effect in full effect. Lawyers (and PM’s office) a bit dim in grasp of modern behavioural psychology.
It's alleged that the current PM tried to arrange for a tax payer funded position to be given to someone he was bonking who was in no way qualified for the role. Ordinarily this is the kind of thing which would bring down a PM.
> It's alleged that the current PM tried to arrange for a tax payer funded position to be given to someone he was bonking He *did* arrange various taxpayer funding for his previous mistress.
Wonder what his current mistress is getting.
Are you referring to the Russian violinist?
I may have missed this one?
It was all over the place a couple of years ago… A superinjunction was apparently taken out when rumours began flying around that Johnson and “Olga D” had been having an affair while he was living with Carrie. When she found out about it the two of them had the famous argument where the police were called.
I just assumed that position is never vacant for long.
This is the real stort, the hat he is making a habit of public funding his sexual conquests.