You would need to be a cock-eyed optimist to see Boris Johnson lasting more than a few weeks in Downing Street. Last night The Telegraph (The Telegraph!) published details of more parties at No 10 last year on the day before Prince Phillip’s funeral when The Queen sat alone in Westminster Abbey as she followed covid restrictions in place at the time. We also learned that Andrew Bridgen has sent in a letter of no confidence to 1922 Committee Chair, Sir Graham Brady.
It's hard to know which is more damaging. When a man as dim and stupidly loyal to Johnson as Bridgen loses confidence you have to conclude the end is very near.
EXCLUSIVE: Longtime Brexiteer Tory MP Andrew Bridgen submits letter of 'no confidence' in Boris Johnson over 'moral vacuum' in government.Bridgen becomes the fifth Tory to say Johnson must go.Listen on Chopper's Politics podcast:https://t.co/fsruIu96pJ @ChoppersPodcast— Christopher Hope📝 (@christopherhope) January 13, 2022
To make things worse, The Times claim that Sue Gray’s report into the parties will find no evidence of criminality but will censure the prime minister and criticise the culture in Downing Street. Culture for which he is wholly responsible.
In a way, this is likely to infuriate voters more than if Gray were to conclude Johnson had broken the law. It will reinforce the impression there is one rule for us and another for him. It isn’t clear if Gray has been informed about the 15 April party last year. If not, I think we can assume there has been parties all the way through the pandemic regardless of rules.
And when the story is broken by Johnson's former employer and his own Fleet Street cheerleader you know he's in deep trouble:
🚨EXCLUSIVENumber 10 held two boozy parties the night before the Queen mourned Prince Philip alone.Staff drank and at points danced until the early hours of the night of April 16.Hours later, the Queen went to a socially-distanced funeral for Philip. https://t.co/sWrFcOrplE— Tony Diver (@Tony_Diver) January 13, 2022
Johnson is a man eaten by ambition and now contemplating perhaps the quickest fall from grace of any PM in modern history. Plainly ill equipped to become prime minister, Johnson simply wanted the trappings of office and not the work. He is notoriously lazy, doesn't like long briefing note and isn't interested in details.
He has probably also devalued himself as a columnist. One wonders if even the Telegraph would employ him at the same salary as before, if at all.
YouGov give Labour its biggest lead over the Conservatives since 2014 which may prompt even more Tory MPs to drop Graham Brady a line:
New YouGov / Times poll gives Labour a ten point lead.Lab 38 (+1)Con 28 (-5)LDem 13 (+3)Green 7 (+1)RefUK 4 (-1)If repeated at a general election around 145 Conservative MPs would lose their seats, including Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab, Grant Shapps and Iain Duncan Smith.— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) January 12, 2022
It seems to me there is a parallel between Djokovic and Johnson and even Prince Andrew. The world No 1 tennis player has had his visa cancelled for a second time and faces being thrown out of Australia before the open tournament gets started. This is for apparently for not being vaccinated against covid and making false declarations on his visa application.
Prince Andrew faces legal action now over his involvement with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
They are clear cases of powerful men thinking normal rules don’t apply to them but each is facing justice this year in the court of public opinion.
And about time, too.
