I don't believe he is likely to sway many Tory MPs but Gauke, I think, misses the more important point.
Johnson's problem is that a prime minister is scrutinised far more closely than anyone else. His words and actions are carefully recorded by the civil service and the media. He has spent the last two years and more, half of his potential premiership, telling a lot of fibs. He had a clean sheet at the outset and proceeded to utter untruths on a more or less daily basis. Many of them trivial and overlooked. This is both inside the House and out of it.
He is now firmly established as a liar in the public mind. The second half of his period in office is going to be taken up having to defend the lies he told in the first half. That, I think was always going to be the case.
But partygate has turbocharged his problems.
Gray's report will show without a doubt that he lied, not once or twice but on multiple occasions. It is inevitable that some heads are going to roll - not his of course, if he can help it. The human shield Johnson has created around himself is going to have to take a few blows. Nobody disputes that.
Downing Street, and those cast out because of him will provide a ready source of leaks about what he has been doing and saying. People unfairly dismissed or with stains on their record will be more than happy to speak to the press - anonymously of course - and the press, denied Johnson's scalp, will be eager to publish and pursue every example of him misleading parliament or fabricating lies to hide the truth. A lot of the heavyweights of Fleet Street are attacking him mercilessly now as we can see.
The media will be feeding a growing appetite among ordinary voters fed up with Boris Johnson, for all the reasons Gauke sets out.
It will be a nightmare for Tories and a gift for Labour. This is against a backdrop of soaring energy and food bills, rising taxes and a lower standard of living.
The news that Johnson is claimed to have intervened to help get Pen Farthing and some animals into Kabul airport during the chaotic scenes last August is a case in point. He has emphatically denied it on more than one occasion but an email trail released by the foreign affairs select committee on Wednesday now casts doubt on his denials. The press are digging into this one now and another frenzy is well underway.
It is a taste of what will be waiting for the prime minister if he manages to ride out the present storm.
Tory MPs might want to think about that.
Blair
Tony Blair may not be everyone’s cup of tea but he could capture an argument and put points across very well. It’s probably one of the reasons he persuaded so many MPs to support the invasion of Iraq (which I confess I supported at the time - he convinced me Saddam Hussain had chemical weapons) in 2003. He was and is opposed to Brexit.
He delivered an excellent speech a few days ago which you can read on his website HERE.
Blair says covid has masked the scale of the challenge we face but as it recedes or at least becomes more manageable a lot of things will become clear:
"by end 2022 we will have the highest tax burden and the largest spending by the state since the post-war period; our debt will be higher than at any time in the last half-century; and our sustainable growth rates in the next years will be around 1.7 per cent, nowhere near those of the first part of this century, and woefully insufficient to pay for the services we expect.
"For the average household, taxes will rise by around £370 per year; energy prices by £600; they will be asked to swap gas boilers for heat pumps and their conventional fuel cars for electric vehicles; the costs for basic foodstuffs are going up; and general inflation will cause rises in interest rates.
"Business will see the biggest uplift in corporation tax since the 1970s whilst investment is 12 per cent below pre-Brexit amounts.
"Our productivity levels – the real test of an economy’s strength and the key to real wage rises – are stagnating."
He concludes:
"Without a radical shift in policy, we face a steady, inexorable compound decline, similar to the 1960s and 1970s. It could be several years before we realise this, but with our present course, we are relegating ourselves to a league which is poorer, less prosperous and less powerful."
The difference between now and then of course is that fifty years ago the nation was beset by events which seemed beyond government control. Now, Brexit, which is at the heart of the 'challenges' he outlines is official government policy.
Our course can't be changed until Brexit itself is reversed.
