IF

[ardcarp]

Apologies for the fuzzy (wuzzy?) print.

[Serial_Apologist]

Brilliant!

[french frank]

What I find quite fascinating is how the staff of No 10 Downing Street have apparently taken the standards of the leader to be the approved way to behave (rather than that they were chosen for their jobs because they were similar personalities). Stratton, for example, seems to have been a 'respectable'/respected journalist. And why has there been only one resignation from among those present at the press briefing 'rehearsal'?

[Dave2002]

What I find quite fascinating is how the staff of No 10 Downing Street have apparently taken the standards of the leader to be the approved way to behave (rather than that they were chosen for their jobs because they were similar personalities). Stratton, for example, seems to have been a 'respectable'/respected journalist. And why has there been only one resignation from among those present at the press briefing 'rehearsal'?

I don't know much about Stratton, but Matthew Parris made a comment about her and BJ yesterday, and that she was basically decent. I got the feeling that he was saying that everyone else went under the wheels of the bus - but not him.

[Frances_iom]

... Stratton, for example, seems to have been a 'respectable'/respected journalist...

may be her lack of taste was shown in that she decided to represent BJ in the first place knowing that on past form much dissembling would be required.
Was Cumming not invited to the party or was he already on the way out (or maybe an early holiday in Barnards Castle?)

[cloughie]

I don't know much about Stratton, but Matthew Parris made a comment about her and BJ yesterday, and that she was basically decent. I got the feeling that he was saying that everyone else went under the wheels of the bus - but not him.

I think that Allegra appears to be genuinely sorry and somewhat ashamed of her actions and her honourable resignation was one of few I’ve seen in political circles in recent times.

[Katzelmacher]

Stratton deserves NO SYMPATHY WHATSOEVER.

She’s yet another one of those ‘for hire’ media types who go in whatever direction she senses the wind blowing.

[french frank]

Stratton deserves NO SYMPATHY WHATSOEVER.

She’s yet another one of those ‘for hire’ media types who go in whatever direction she senses the wind blowing.

I didn't realise there would be people here who actually knew her personally, as distinct from getting their news exclusively from the 'for hire' media types - as most of us do.

[cloughie]

Stratton deserves NO SYMPATHY WHATSOEVER.

She’s yet another one of those ‘for hire’ media types who go in whatever direction she senses the wind blowing.

Hang on Kat - she’a a journalist - that’s their living…

[jayne lee wilson]

I don't know much about Stratton, but Matthew Parris made a comment about her and BJ yesterday, and that she was basically decent. I got the feeling that he was saying that everyone else went under the wheels of the bus - but not him.

Yes, I saw that on Newsnight - a pretty frank condemnation of the PM from Parris - I felt like cheering, if grimly.

I used to admire Allegra Stratton's Political reports on the Guardian and Newsnight (although she hit trouble after an interview with a poor single mother and Newsnight had to apologise), but her Conservative leanings and ties to Tory Politicans go back a few years.

I was still surprised when she took the Press Secretary job though. It was bound to mean dissembling, avoidance and denial of the PM's words and actions, those of the cabinet too.
Very similar to the Trump White House aides and officials after he took office. One gasped at the TV reports nightly. If you choose to work for a given leader, you take on their own characteristics; independent conscience and intelligence are subsumed. How else could you do it?

Think of Javid, recently asked about the 40 new hospitals Johnson promised at the election - he claimed it would actually be 46....
If you heard Andrew Jimson (who published an "affectionate" 2006 biog of BJ) on PM this evening you'd have heard an even worse example of a journalist defending Johnson with all kinds of smilingly-voiced, mealy-mouthed vagaries; just appalling. I cried out in frustration (yet again).
Evan Davies sounded astonished but kept his professional cool admirably.

But I still felt sorry for the tearful Stratton yesterday; I tend to believe Parris' account of her. Given her broad sympathies I guess the lure of power, a position close to the heart of it, had been too much to resist.
Yesterday, that bubble of power and pretence burst...

[french frank]

Hang on Kat - she’a a journalist - that’s their living…

But in this case, the matter of whether one has any sympathy is irrelevant. In the circumstances, whatever opinion one has of her, resigning was the right thing to do. In my opinion. At least one of the men present ("23-year-old public schoolboy Ed Oldfield" - D. Mail) was named and as yet I don't believe he has resigned. The rest seemed to have had their faces blurred out, so no doubt they were identifiable by someone. And They Know Who They Are.