Bye bye Boris, plus 5 highlights from ‘Vrye Weekblad’

Here’s what’s hot in the latest edition of the Afrikaans digital weekly

08 July 2022 - 06:42
subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now
After a shambolic tenure as Britain's prime minister, Boris Johnson resigned on Thursday.
After a shambolic tenure as Britain's prime minister, Boris Johnson resigned on Thursday.
Image: REUTERS/Henry Nicholls

It is fitting that Boris Johnson’s announcement that he will resign as British prime minister was messy, defiant and graceless and came at the end of a week of more revelations about Tory sleaze, writes Adri Kotzé in London.

Like his term as prime minister, it was tone-deaf and disrespectful. The only thing he cares about is Boris Johnson. And power. 

As Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s former adviser who probably best knows the prime minister’s political instincts and style, said about him: Blames everyone else, thinks he is the real victim, and sets up a betrayal story for future Tory conferences and newspaper columns. 

In the end, there were one too many scandals and cover-ups. When it came to light that he had lied to his own MPs about what he had known in 2019 of sex abuse claims against MP Chris Pincher before appointing him as deputy whip, MPs resigned in droves. Last week a drunken Pincher allegedly sexually harassed two men in a private club.

In Johnson’s speech yesterday, during which he at times sounded more like he was accepting an award rather than signalling his intent to resign, he blamed the “herd instinct” of the Conservatives in Westminster and said it was an “eccentric” decision.

“When the herd moves it moves,” he said.

“Them’s the breaks.” 

All indications were that he’s convinced he can survive and may even be welcomed back as the prodigal son. There was not a hint of humility or apology.

Johnson never thought rules applied to him. He shrugged off revelations about lockdown parties in Downing Street and the scandal over using Tory donations to fund his interior decorating. Even when he was given a spot fine for the law-breaking parties, the Ukraine war detracted from his predicament.


Read a new edition online every Friday
Only R10 for the first month!

Eventually, however, his faltering led to Tory fears that Johnson would be an albatross in upcoming elections. Seasoned political journalist Andrew Marr writes in the New Statesman that “Conservative backbenchers have had it up to their back teeth”.

“I have never heard such anger — not against Tony Blair in the aftermath of the Iraq War, not against Margaret Thatcher as she was failing. No 10’s lies over the promotion of Pincher after allegations of sexual misconduct were made against him genuinely revolted MPs who had up to then reluctantly stuck with the prime minister.”

So concerned are some Tories that Johnson will try to entrench himself that former Tory prime minister John Major urged the influential Conservative 1922 committee not to leave Johnson in No 10 as caretaker leader. 

Columnist Matthew Parris stressed in the Times that Johnson has bought himself a few more months, but hasn’t actually resigned yet. The Mirror reported Johnson wants to delay his resignation because he wants to host his own lavish post-lockdown wedding reception at Chequers.

Read more about this, as well as more news and analysis, in this week’s edition of Vrye Weekblad

Must-read articles in this week’s Vrye Weekblad

>> Browse the full July 8 edition

INTOLERANCE IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL | Suddenly Operation Dudula leader Nhlanhla “Lux” Dlamini, Russian President Vladimir Putin, police minister Bheki Cele, former US president George Bush, German dictator Adolf Hitler, AfriForum’s Ernst Roets, Chinese President Xi Jinping, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, recently resigned British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and EFF leader Julius Malema all sound the same. The world is becoming stranger and stranger, writes political analyst Piet Croucamp.

THE WEEK IN POLITICS | Max du Preez writes about cooperative governance and traditional affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s insistence on more state involvement in the economy, advocate Dali Mpofu’s rudeness and police minister Bheki Cele can shut up himself.

DO YOU WANT TO FIGHT ON FACEBOOK? | Tinus Horn was slightly disappointed when Damian Willemse kicked the winning points.

FOR THE PRICE OF FUEL | The government is in a bind. No matter which way it turns its efforts to curtail the petrol price, it will sacrifice votes and an easy income tax source.

CROSS-POLLINATION OR EXPROPRIATION? | Louis de Villiers writes about a topic “woke” journalists would rather avoid.


subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now

Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.

Speech Bubbles

Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.