Politics
Ellie Abraham
Jun 10, 2022
BBC
It’s been a difficult week for Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party, and things were made all the worse as Labour’s Wes Streeting perfectly summed up everything that has gone wrong under Johnson’s leadership.
Streeting dished out his unflattering summary of Johnson and the Tory leadership as he featured as a panellist on BBC’s Question Time.
The episode came just days after 41 per cent of Johnson’s Tory colleagues declared no confidence in their leader.
Broadcast live from Dorking in Surrey, Streeting criticised Conservative MPs for being willing to “defend the indefensible” to further their own careers.
Streeting said: “I don’t know what people are expecting to change. This is who Boris Johnson is. This is who he has always been and he will never change.
“And the reason why he’s able to stay on, despite losing the confidence of 40 per cent of his MPs, is because the majority of the Conservative Party's MPs are willing to tolerate the intolerable and to defend the indefensible, and to look the other way, even as Boris Johnson bulldozes through the very basic standards of public life that every politician should abide by and every politician should be held accountable to.”
He then ripped into Johnson’s record while in office, which made for very grim listening.
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\u201c\u201cThe majority of the Conservative Party's MPs are willing to tolerate the intolerable and to defend the indefensible\u201d\n\nLabour\u2019s @wesstreeting discusses Monday\u2019s confidence vote and the Conservatives\u2019 track record in government. #bbcqt\u201d— BBC Question Time (@BBC Question Time) 1654811692
“As for delivering, ok the Tories are trying to recruit 20,000 more police officers, to replace the 21,000 that they scrapped.
“We’ve got the highest taxes since just after the Second World War – 15 tax rises in the last two years – and people are paying more and getting less.
“The largest NHS waiting list in history, and they were at record levels before the pandemic, before Chris [Tory pannellist] tries to blame those on that.
“Schools – the gap between kids from the richest and poorest backgrounds is widening. Life expectancy in this country is lessening. People are dying earlier.
“And if that’s not enough, if we want a human illustration of what is fundamentally wrong in our country, it’s the fact that despite all the pressures that the NHS is currently under there are hospitals in this country that are opening food banks, not to serve the local community, but to serve their own staff because they are so poorly paid and so poorly treated.
“If that’s a record Boris Johnson wants to stand on, if that’s the record that Chris wants to defend, then bring it on. If the Tories are stupid enough to be led into the general election by Boris Johnson, give me a choice of Keir Starmer or Boris Johnson every day of the week and twice on polling day.”
Streeting's speech was met with applause from the audience and social media.
Better luck next time, Johnson.
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