Monday 17 January 2022

Johnson sinks deeper in the mire

Rupert Murdoch has obviously decided that Johnson is expendable. The Sunday Times this weekend had a couple of absolutely damning articles about the PM and partygate. First of all, Dominic Lawson claims that at least two people in Downing Street told Boris Johnson at the time that the 20 May 2020 invitation to “socially distanced drinks’ sent out by Martin Reynolds was indeed a party and definitely against the covid rules in force. He apparently accused them of ‘overreacting.’

The paper also had Tim Shipman, chief political commentator, writing that Johnson was furious with his team last Tuesday when news of the April 2021 parties emerged the day before he was due to face Kier Starmer at PMQs.

According to Shipman,

"Johnson did not rant but made it clear he was furious with his team. 'He had a massive go at them for failing to sort things out,' one of those present told a friend. 'He made it clear he thought they had let him down. Boris’s view is that he is not to blame, that everyone else is to blame'.”

This could only happen with someone possessed of a towering sense of entitlement built up over a lifetime of excess and misbehaviour constantly excused or overlooked by people above him. Johnson is such a man.

He has never taken responsibility for anything because he never had to.

But in Downing Street you cannot escape. Things are so bad, according to one minister, that he has actually started reading his briefing papers. Cummings used to insist he was to be given nothing longer that two sides of A4 and he couldn’t apparently manage that - until now. 

There are Tory MPs who seem to believe in public at least, that Johnson can somehow reset things and survive. This would mean changing the habits of a lifetime, like a junkie promising to end dependency on a class A drug overnight. It is not going to happen.

This Twitter thread by James Johnson (no relation) who used to run polling in Downing Street is fascinating. He has done some work with focus groups and the results should convince any wavering Tory MPs.

Johnson has lost voters in red wall seats who supported him in 2019. Their comments are damning. But this one is worth picking out:

“Now he’s got Brexit done, I don’t think he’s the person to model the party for the future.” 

They still don’t realise that Brexit was the biggest con of all, but they will eventually.

Here's another, typical comment from the focus group:



I don’t believe anybody thinks he will last beyond the summer and my money is on him being gone by spring. It’s over bar the shouting.

If I worked in Downing Street and held a senior position which might be threatened by Johnson, who has talked about his team saving the ‘big dog’ otherwise known as him, I would be very angry. It is an obvious reference to scapegoats being thrown to the wolves to allow him to spend more time with his wallpaper. 

Note this parody account, but there is truth behind it:

Some might think it’s OK to do that, to sacrifice themselves to rescue the prime minister from his own incompetence. But I doubt that all of them will. Some are sure to have more damaging evidence that will find its way into the papers. It’s a simple question of survival, theirs or Johnson’s.

And it isn’t as if he’s doing sterling work. He’s no Thatcher or Major and not even a shadow of Churchill. They were all serious minded people. Why would you give up your own career to save a lazy fool who simply wants the trappings of office? Would you do it?

No, I think the revelations will be coming even thicker and faster than before. I expect we don’t know the half of it. But we soon will.

Richard Murphy at East Anglia Bylines as an interesting article about what might happen to the Conservative party after Johnson. It’s a good question. I don’t see it surviving intact. Those who sup with the devil and all that...


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