Johnson's "honesty and integrity"

The Daily Mirror's story about Johnson and Arcuri is getting a lot of coverage (although not at all on the BBC). They have been milking it with new revelations every day and it's wall-to-wall on Twitter. I don't see it doing him much damage though since his moral character is well known and his reputation for serial infidelity can hardly go any lower (or higher depending on your point of view).  The Times covers the denial by his new press secretary Allegra Stratton that the PM used his position (!) to funnel £126,000 of public money to his lover. The opening paragraph is really something:

"Boris Johnson conducted himself with honesty and integrity in his alleged relationship with Jennifer Arcuri, his press secretary said yesterday, following new accounts that the two had sex on a sofa in his marital home."

This will I'm sure go down in history. Ms Stratton used to be a respected journalist but may well find her own reputation for 'honesty and integrity' has suffered a fatal blow.

For the moment it seems he can do no wrong, with party membership rising to 200,000 after it was down as low as 70,000 in the last few years. Party Chair Amanda Milling revealed the figures saying it was all down to Boris Johnson.

She said the new recruits were from “all parts of the country” – with a particular rise in Young Conservatives",  adding that "Everyone kind of loves the prime minister. He’s incredibly popular in the country.” 

Surely nothing tells us what a cesspit we are lowering ourselves into when a man like Johnson drives a spike in party membership, what are we coming to?  I assume many of them are former UKIP/Brexit party and shows how difficult it will be to shift the centre of gravity away from its present anti-EU stance.

I once made an image which I posted on Facebook with words and phrases which had been used about the prime minister before he was elected party leader, in 2019.  This is it:

At the time, I was a bit nervous and I had to make sure all the words were properly sourced to avoid any comeback. It did well with a few thousand page views.  Did anybody complain?  No.

The words and phrases all came from newspaper articles and I produced it on 17 June 2019, a month or more before he was elected leader of the Tory party on 24 July and hence prime minister.   In other words, his character defects were hardly a secret. Everything he has done since has only reinforced my opinion of him and I don't suppose any of the journalists who wrote the original words would retract a single one. 

Yet, here we are in 2021 and he is ahead in the polls and party membership on the rise.

What conclusions can we draw?  People prefer reassuring lies to uncomfortable truths - or at least think they do. To be elected in this country these are the qualities the electorate values.  

The Daily Mail (surely one of the newspapers at the heart of the problem) used to call Alastair Campbell Tony Blair's "Liar in chief" which I suppose meant at least Blair needed one.  Johnson does it all by himself with aides like Ms Stratton struggling to finesse the gaffes and lies.

I don't incidentally, absolve Campbell since I think he also told may lies while he was Tony Blair's official press spokesman. Neither am I naïve enough to believe a government could survive ten minutes without a few untruths.  But I do believe each successive administration takes it a bit further and Johnson, by his own actions gives carte blanche to others in his government to to do the same.

Even generally honest men are forced to back the PM. Who really believes Brandon Lewis thought there was no Irish sea border - or Julian Smith thought Johnson was fully behind the Good Friday Agreement?  One can criticise them for being weak, lacking honesty or failing to resign but if you want to stay in the cabinet you must support bare-faced lies because it is clearly what the people demand.

I am afraid we are in dark times.