Sonia Purnell
@soniapurnell
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New York Times bestselling author Plutarch prize KINGMAKER: Pamela Harriman’s astonishing life of power, seduction & intrigue’ out September. THIS ACCOUNT ONLY
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Wasn’t sure whether to tweet this. So painful I find it hard to hold back the tears. But on 7 May my mother died alone in a care home. This government is grotesque
#dominiccummings
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My mum passed away from covid this morning. She was 91 and in a nursing home but I will remember her as an impossibly glamorous woman who loved a party, swimming in the sea and her art. RIP Jean Patricia Purnell. Will miss you
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Well that’s weird because Downing Street repeatedly told us when Johnson was actually in hospital that he was in good spirits, had his red boxes with him, was in charge and sitting up engaging positively. Which version is true? Both can’t be
Boris Johnson says doctors prepared to announce his death as he was treated for Covid-19
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My mother died in May 2020. From covid. Alone. In a care home. In meltdown. They told me by email.
#downingstreetparty
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I lost my mother to covid in May. Last night I lost mr brother. The last of my 3 siblings. Steve had had an unbearably tough life but was the sweetest man. I am sad beyond words
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My mum was one of those abandoned to her fate in her care home. I was informed of her death by email. Everyone on her floor died
#covid
This parliamentary report is embargoed until midnight. But its contents is utterly devastating
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My mother is 91, has advanced dementia and lives in a care home that has been shut to visitors including me for nearly 6 weeks. Today she tested positive for covid. I miss her terribly and fear for everyone in care homes even good ones like hers
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It worries me to see this weird anti French thing in Britain. No, France is not a police state. No, its vaccine programme is not a disaster. French economy will bounce back quicker. French death rate lower. Vaccine programme now catching up. France is friend and neighbour. Stop
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The appalling MoS piece reflects misogynist culture led by Johnson. Seconds before going on TV panel one of his cheerleader ministers leant over sweatily and said straight into my earJohnson had told him I liked ***** sex. Was intended to put me off on air. You know who you are
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To work with Boris Johnson is to encounter something dark, sinister and totally without soul. It is a destructive experience that makes you doubt your very sanity. Sympathy therefore for the good people of Whitehall. I found that the only salvation is to tell what you've seen
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Today is the anniversary of losing my mum to covid. She was in a nursing home when they released infected people from hospital. No one on her floor survived. I miss her so much. RIP Jean Purnell, artist, surfer, Bon viveur, mum
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This is how my mum and her entire floor at the care home died. Words fail...
This is just...
Cummings: "The government rhetoric was we put a shield around people in career homes - that was complete nonsense. Quite the opposite of putting a shield around them, we sent people with Covid back to care homes with Covid."
Stringer: "How extraordinary".
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As his former deputy I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this
Boris Johnson: “We have to address the fundamental issue of the casual everyday sexism and apathy that fails to address the concerns of women, that is the underlying issue.”
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Having worked as Johnson’s deputy in Brussels I have no doubt he knew precisely what the customs union was. It served him to pretend not to know. Because understanding it and still leaving was obviously moronic
Johnson “had to be told what the customs union was after spending years campaigning for the UK to opt out of it.”
“He did not know..what a customs union was, and that explains why we got into the problems that we then got into with Northern Ireland.”
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Am having a pre Brexit consolation kir in Place Sablon in Brussels. I did this 30 years ago to escape my then boss Boris Johnson’s madness. Here again to do the same.
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Dear
@Keir_Starmer
please do not vote for any Brexit deal. There's now no chance of it being a good one. It will bring more hardship and misery. You will be blamed if you back it. Better to abstain
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Journos please ask Tory MPs who abstain why they are not against prime ministers lying to parliament and holding it in contempt. Abstaining is not condemning
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On the day NHS staff are told they may have to work without PPE worth remembering this: UK 'missed three chances to join EU scheme to bulk-buy PPE'
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Here we go again A thread. Boris Johnson’s words equating the battle to save Ukraine with Brexit will have been carefully chosen. He knows that they are shocking enough to attract huge attention. He does not care they are grotesque. Just as with the Peppa Pig speech they are
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Pretty grim for Corbyn. Tetchy. Repetitive. Evasive. Unconvincing.
@afneil
went for it. Let’s see if he does same with Johnson
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4 first year uni students with no face to face contact with anyone from their uni for whole year, told off for laughing outside their campus building in freezing cold at 10pm so come briefly inside to say goodbye. Each fined £400. What say you Matt Hancock? Would you like to pay?
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Dear
@TomTugendhat
As chair of foreign affairs committee please explain how in future you will hold other countries to account for breaking international law? And indeed electoral law? Thank you
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Sorry. I just can’t get over this. A hugely controversial national decision without any Parliamentary input announced by PM without national mandate who then earth scorches to prevent future rethink and based on premises already demonstrated to be untrue
Not only cancelling, but making it impossible for HS2 to be revived - unprecedented for a govt to act like this. Story by my colleague
@helenpidd
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This does NOT look good. Should not be happening on our streets. What has happened to our policing?
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The more proof we see, the more difficult it becomes to understand how Britain ever allowed Johnson to happen
People who knew Johnson, felt disgust & contempt for his molecularly shallow intellect, grotesque ego & sociopathic incapacity for anything beyond self-promotion & exploitative fantasy-peddling. They knew he’d be a disastrous PM. But all too many nodded along.
And we got this ⬇️
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Thank you to those who stood by me during the difficult years of standing alone to call out Boris Johnson. You are good friends and I am so grateful. It was at a time of immense personal challenges for other reasons. It’s not been easy and I hope but am not certain it’s over
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Does UK have a media problem? BBC last night had fact that an ex PM could muster only 6 MPs to vote against a report finding he was a liar of monumental scale as its THIRD story. This morning no mention on front page of Metro, Sun, Mail. Express has flyer for inside story: surely
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And yet I have outrage fatigue so now I just feel unutterably sad.
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Ok so the Commons has just voted against reuniting refugee children with their families, against protecting worker rights and against supporting people from any background to study in Europe under the Erasmus scheme. Virtually no media coverage!
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Wonder if Johnson’s foreign-born nurses who have just saved his life remember him vowing 4 months ago to stop people like them from treating Britain as ‘their own country’
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Ultimately this is about truth, compassion, our souls. I lost my mother and my brother last year. Both were on their own when they died. No one from birth family is still alive except me. I had hoped to see extended family last Xmas as reminder what I still have. Didn’t happen
So many on twitter tonight recounting their loss; their beloved fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters. We have become weary of death - of numbers - but today we are reminded of the pain, the grieving - the horror of it all. It is making me cry.
#NoShame
#NoHonour
#NoRespect
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Pretending to forget people's names or to no know who they are or deliberately getting their names slightly wrong is a tiresome repeat line from the Johnson playbook. I first noticed it back in the 1990s. All about undermining them
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While we’re waiting does anyone have a breakdown if £12bn spent in test and trace? Where has it gone? Who got it? What did they do to earn it? How was the pay rate negotiated and was there a performance related element?
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Yeah, but no-one knew, right? (Note this was first edition, published in 2011)
“To work with Boris is to encounter something dark, sinister and totally without soul. It is a destructive experience that makes you doubt your very sanity.” Sonia Purnell, 'Just Boris' (2011). Still the best biography assessing the moral abyss that is Johnson.
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Because the real story is the utter failure of Joynson as PM. Bug picture stuff. The Ukraine refugee scandal. The visceral dislike and distrust of Johnson on the world stage. The prospect of widespread poverty even destitution as a result of Brexit, covid, inflation and
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Why would anyone hold up Oxford Union debating skills as a qualification to run the country? Look at what those Union hacks have done to Britain. Trashed it while smirking at their own self-proclaimed brilliance
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About distraction. (As well as appealing to most extreme base of course) they are intended to and have succeeded in diverting attention from the real story here. This is classic Johnsonism and I’m sad that more people can’t see through it
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Who are you kidding. I have been writing about Johnson’s deeply deeply problematic attitude to women for years. No doubt more to come on that
As much as I disagree with
@AngelaRayner
on almost every political issue I respect her as a parliamentarian and deplore the misogyny directed at her anonymously today.
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Just been saying on BBC 5 Live that the story here is that Johnson has been found to have lied to Parliament. We paid for his v fancy lawyers. Due process was observed. Tory majority etc. To claim kangaroo court is surely in contempt of Parliament. He lost. Full stop
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These huge new vaccination hubs. Do they make sense for over 80 year olds? Big queues, long journeys, more risk. Surely local makes sense. Maybe mobile vaccinators, like the old mobile libraries?
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Does the guy falsely accused of punching a Tory aide have grounds for a libel case against journalists who ran the story without checking?
Imagine what might have happened to him if the incident had not been videoed thus proving his innocence
#punchgate
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News summary: UK covid deaths higher than entire EU put together. Commons has to be shut + deep cleaned after Biz Sec gives rise to covid infection fears. UK shuts borders to countries with lower covid infection rates in further massive hit to economy and freedoms. Success!
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Correct. We ask ourselves why did no journalist, civil servant or police officer report it. And the answer is terrifying.
I can easily name ten, maybe as many as 20 UK political journalists who must have known or should have known about this Johnson party. Their editors would fire them. Except some of these mates of Boris are editors. It will all in tears. Ours.
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And a lovely evening to everyone except rude hostile border force guy at Portsmouth just now who put a French visitor through the nth degree for no reason. French guy kept calm and polite but was shameful. Turned out he was senior naval officer on exchange + has happened before
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Dear journos, I’ve said this before but if Johnson used eye-catching phrase or name eg Calvin Klein briefs or Roosevelt he knows you’ll probably put that in the headline rather than the anti democratic fatal shambles that is his government. PLEASE stop falling for it every time!
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Good for them: RNLI vows to continue sea rescues despite prison fears for picking up migrants
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@Peston
Robert, I'm sorry I just don't think this tone is right on a day when more than 1600 people have died from covid. Too much about personality in politics, not the fact that people are dying in droves and why didn't the government do better
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My dad grew up very poor. He told me as a child how his teachers used to feed him as no one else could. We used to talk about it as another time another world. He was born in 1918. He’s left us now but what on earth would he think of this?
Sharing this again as our analytics suggest few people saw it. I want the world to see what we’ve become. What teachers are doing, before they can even think about teaching. This is who we are and I wish, wish, wish we weren’t this.
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This really is top class. Gracious and elegant and moving
Remarkable statement from President Macron. Hard to imagine a contemporary British prime minister being as gracious about a great French figure passing.
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Here’s my mum not that long ago. I am so touched by all your kind words on here. There have been an overwhelming number so please forgive me if I don’t reply to you all in person. But thank you. You have all helped me so much. Here’s to Jean!
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Wow. Difference between idea of calm, measured service to the nation of Helen MacNamara and the macho posturing of yesterday is breathtaking.
#CovidInquiry
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@PrueLeith
So why did you vote for Brexit? It will ruin the very farmers you now claim to support and leave us at the mercy of low quality food exports you now claim to be against.
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From 2019 >> Boris Johnson's Conservative Party has received a surge in cash from Russian donors via
@businessinsider
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If only there had been a book called Just Boris: A Tale of Blond Ambition 12 years ago giving chapter and verse that he was a bad guy
If only there had been a way to tell Boris Johnson was a bad guy
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This is all my worst fears about Boris johnson coming true. God help us
Boris Johnson skipped five Cobra meetings on the virus, calls to order protective gear were ignored and scientists’ warnings fell on deaf ears
Failings in February may have cost thousands of lives
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Right, now that that ghost has been put to bed can we rejoin the EU now?
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Suspect this is the same “furious” that Johnson said he was when hearing about those Downing Street parties he’d actually been to.
Times reports that Johnson is “furious” over UK lagging behind in sanctions on oligarchs. Well, that’s really funny because he’s claimed repeatedly that we’re world beating on this (like everything else).
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Yep, well, remember Johnson broke formal undertakings to his wives, his family, his employers, his colleagues, his constituents, voters generally. No comeback. So why *not* break international law too?
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First journalist question to Rees Mogg as minister for “Brexit opportunities” must surely be: if Brexit is so great why did you move your own business to Ireland?
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Gaslighting - Johnson, you negotiated this deal, you signed it, you prevented debate on it, you hailed it as a great deal. Only you own the mess and misery it's caused
What a dreadful human being. Merkel hasn’t agreed to a border between Dortmund and Dusseldorf, created by her winning a campaign of lies which has torn her country apart and put a peace treaty at risk. The wurst will not be behind us till you crooks and charlatans are gone
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Also Kuenssberg’s line that Gove “betrayed” Johnson in 2016 by refusing to back him as PM. Lazy recycling of Johnson briefing. No, Gove saw an incompetent charlatan and knew would be disaster. He betrayed us later by backing him then.
I attended the senior heads of mission conference for all UK ambassadors very soon after the referendum.
@SimonMcDonaldUK
was scrupulous, adamant and insistent that our duty was to help the govt deliver Brexit. He and senior leadership were 100% professional. This is muckraking.
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Thank you all for your support over losing my brother Steve on Thursday night. I have been overwhelmed by your kindness. It helps to think of so many good people out there
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If ever there was a case for the monarch to intervene surely it’s now. Really not clear any Tory capable of forming a govt that can command authority in the House. We need a general election. This can’t go on.
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@JulieOwenMoylan
When in Brussels last weekend heard that European kids no longer see UK unis as the big prize because of hostile environment and fears for EU students could soon soar.
#Brexit
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Hear from Democrat friends about that Truss Biden bi-lateral the other day in New York. Word is that went extremely badly. Especially on NI. Can Truss do any single thing right?
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@GregHands
@ard
@annettedittert
Honestly I doubt it.
@annettedittert
is one of the best informed, analytical and fair journalists I know. Instead of criticising, probably better to take stock of what she says and try to do better. Also a very good friend to Britain. We need friends right now
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This this this. If you don’t vote how can you complain at the outcome?
97%+ of over 65s are registered to vote. Only 2/3s of 18-24 year olds are on the register. If you turn 18 on or before 4th July you can register to vote right now.
Do not lose your democratic birthright! It matters so much.
It only takes 5 minutes.
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I'm told not all Boris Johnson's family are voting for him. Not even all his nearest and dearest.
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Lovely Polish hygienist: Are you v worried about something? You’re biting the inside of your cheeks in your sleep. Me: yes. Brexit. Hygienist: Me too. All my friends are leaving
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@JohnJCrace
Was so touched by what you wrote the other day about your life and now this! I wish you the speediest of recoveries and great comfort from your wonderful sounding family. S
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I certainly stand with Gary. But let’s not forget what he was speaking out about. He was not backing any political party but simply human decency and respect
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I au paired in France as an 18 year old. Would never had the chance to live in the Alps for a season otherwise. I learned so much. Had never touched a pair of skis before. Had never been in mountains before. Why spoil this for others?
🚨🇪🇺🇬🇧🤔🤔🤔🇪🇺🇬🇧🚨NEW: post
#brexit
immigration rules are shaping up to kill the au pair industry - on which 45,000 working families depend for affordable childcare. Seems mad. Stay with me. /1
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Don’t forget us Europe
@HeleneBismarck
@annettedittert
@IciLondres
@fcollomp
@guyverhofstadt
@TerryReintke
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Thank you everyone on here who tweeted or sent such supportive and warm cards and messages over the last few days. I treasure your words more than I can say. I tried my best to warn about Boris Johnson. I look forward to the day when I never have to think about him again!
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