Ross: Johnson should resign over lockdown party
Ross says Johnson should resign for attending a garden party at No 10 Downing Street at the height of the pandemic in 2020. He says he is concerned that the continuing debate around ‘Partygate’ will be a distraction from the good governance of the country.
Regretfully, I have to say that his position is not tenable…I don’t want to be in this position, but I am in this position now, where I don’t think he can continue as leader of the Conservatives…I also have to look at the information I’ve got in front of me and stick with the position that I made quite clear yesterday that, if he did attend that party, he couldn’t continue as Prime Minister.
Ross also added that when he discussed these issues with the PM he made a defence of his own position, claiming that he hadn’t done anything wrong.
Sturgeon: Johnson using ‘cheap, populist policies’ to distract from scandals
Sturgeon says Johnson of attempting to create populist policies to distract public outrage away from his recent scandals. Johnson has allegedly launched “Operation Red Meat”, which includes plans to scrap the BBC License fee in five years time and to use sonic weapons against small boats in an attempt to send illegal immigrants back into French waters. Government ministers have denied that the policies were created to divert from the Prime Minister’s travails. Sturgeon:
While everybody will have different degrees of criticism of the BBC, to try to jettison the BBC to save his own skin, it’s unedifying. It’s beneath the office of Prime Minister and all it does really is underline this feeling that Boris Johnson is not just himself damaged irreparably, in my view, but he is bit by bit undermining and damaging the institutions of the country and the institutions that support our democracy and that’s why it’s got to stop. A line has to be drawn under this and it’s now up to the Tory Party to decide what’s more important – protecting Boris Johnson or acting in the wider interests of the country…I think there is such a fundamental issue of trust and integrity now around the Prime Minister and the responsible thing for him to do, to allow the focus to be back where it needs to be, would be to resign from office.
Sturgeon also compared her behaviour to Johnsons, climing that she that she would have resigned had the Jamese Hamilton inquiry found any evidence of breaking the ministerial code been found.
Sturgeon: Johnson should resign, says she nearly resigned
In an interview with Sky Sturgeon says that she had considered quitting her job last year whilst she was being investigated for breaching the ministerial code. She said that the position of First minister like that of Prime Minister was a privilege not something to be taken for granted and where you are found to have broken the standards required of the job, you have to be willing to step aside.
My own personal experience this time last year – I was being accused in a completely different context, of having breached the ministerial code. I should say I was found by an independent adviser, and in an independent report, not to have breached the ministerial code. But when that was ongoing, I had within myself to ask myself some serious questions and I had came to the conclusion in my mind, that had I been deemed to have breached the ministerial code – I didn’t think I had – but if an independent person had said I had, then in the interest of the office I hold and in the interest of the country, I at that point would have resigned.I’m sure it would have been really difficult and I’m glad that didn’t come to pass. But these responsibilities are heavy responsibilities, and they require all of us in these offices to contemplate things that perhaps others might think is difficult to imagine.
She also says Boris Johnson should resign.
I think if Boris Johnson has decency and integrity, however difficult it may be, he will reach the conclusion that the time is right for him to step aside.