Johnson row exposes gestural class politics

The press desperately try to escalate the row between Johnson and his partner C Symonds into some legitimation crisis. The neighbour who called both the police and the Guardian has issued a statement. 

In the Observer:

Penn, 29, said: ...I heard what sounded like shouting coming from the street....“I went downstairs, on the phone to the driver, and collected my food. On the way back into my flat, it became clear that the shouting was coming from a neighbour’s flat. It was loud enough and angry enough that I felt frightened and concerned for the welfare of those involved, so I went inside my own home, closed the door, and pressed record on the voice memos app on my phone....“After a loud scream and banging, followed by silence, I ran upstairs, and with my wife agreed that we should check on our neighbours. I knocked three times at their front door, but there was no response. I went back upstairs into my flat, and we agreed that we should call the police.... My sole concern up until this point was the welfare and safety of our neighbours. I hope that anybody would have done the same thing....“Once clear that no one was harmed, I contacted the Guardian, as I felt it was of important public interest. I believe it is reasonable for someone who is likely to become our next prime minister to be held accountable for all of their words, actions and behaviours.

I, along with a lot of my neighbours all across London, voted to remain within the EU. That is the extent of my involvement in politics....I would ask that you leave private citizens alone and focus instead on those who have chosen to run for power within the public eye. “The attempts from some areas of the press to instead focus their stories on us, and in particular my wife, have been eye-opening, and very alarming. 

Lovely Observer copy with people feeling frightened and wholly concerned with others, which inevitably led to a contest among the vulnerable (see Symonds below) oddly combined with what this plonker thought was the national interest.The BBC repeated this story with no comment  No-one asked him how he knew what the national interest actually was, whether he had shown any concern for it before or how it somehow trumped his own interest in gaining attention for his views. Did the Guradian pay for the story or the recording  I ask myself?  HIs concern for privacy is also rather amusing in the circumstances.  

The Sunday Times had a different take:

The neighbours who called police about a row between Boris Johnson and his partner are Tom Penn and Eve Leigh, a left-wing dramatist who boasted only a few days before that she had “given the finger” to the former foreign secretary....even after officers called back “to let us know that nobody was harmed”, the couple decided to pass a recording they had made of the incident to The Guardian newspaper....[Symonds] believed her neighbours’ decision to record the incident and give the tape to a left-wing newspaper was a “dirty tricks story” and she felt “very unlucky” to have Penn and Leigh living across the landing from her.

Symonds accused Leigh and Penn of “eavesdropping” on the couple during the event....“Carrie feels trapped in the flat and does not feel safe after this,” one friend said. The friends said that neither Symonds or Johnson had heard Leigh or Penn knocking on the night of the argument. Penn and Leigh knew Symonds’s mobile number but had not called it, they said.

Leigh is an enthusiastic Buddhist, saying she has “been chanting for 10 years” and describing the religion as her “biggest influence”. However, she appears to have ignored the faith’s advice to avoid rudeness, tweeting only last weekend that she “just gave Boris Johnson the finger, this weekend is unstoppable”.... Leigh responded with the insulting gesture after Johnson said hello to her while he was removing posters and stickers attacking him, which had been placed on their car and front door...The stickers bore the slogan “F*** Boris” and the logo of an anarchist group. The posters said: “We’d rather endure him as our neighbour than our prime minister.” Leigh and Penn said they had not been involved in putting up the stickers or the posters....

Leigh’s work was performed as part of the Brexit Stage Left festival in London, which was supported by Eurodram, an agency part-funded by the EU.... Leigh said she thought of herself as an “outsider”, saying her work attacks the “huge ugly edifice of capitalist heteropatriarchy”...The Guardian described her play The Trick, staged at London’s Bush Theatre in February, as “emotionally manipulative” and “eye-rollingly cringeworthy”....Penn, a percussionist and singer, claims to have performed at the Royal Albert Hall and St Paul’s Cathedral. A biographical site says he is noted for his theatrical productions for babies. Reviews have praised his “comfortable, inviting and baby friendly” shows and even his “quirky use of socks”.Leigh and Penn are not untypical of Camberwell.

less well-off residents, including neighbours in the house next door, which remains in council ownership, were more tolerant...A woman in the building, who did not give her name, said: “From my point of view, I expect privacy. I don’t want to use this opportunity to get on TV. Even if something happened once, so what? We are all human.”