Andrew Lilico

In defence of Boris: would his replacement be any better?

The PM's personal morality is highly questionable, but on policy questions he frequently gets the big calls right

(Photo: Getty)

Keir Starmer, aided and abetted by Boris Johnson’s many internal enemies within the Conservative party, has managed to get into the public consciousness the idea that if Boris Johnson attended a ‘party’ during lockdown, he should resign.

There are a number of good reasons that the Tory party might feel it was time for a new leader, but the notion that attending an at-best semi-licit drinks event in one’s own back garden counts as a grounds to remove a prime minister seems to me to be wildly disproportionate.

People say: ‘Those that make laws should not break them.’ And, of course, that it correct. But it doesn’t follow that any PM that broke a law ought to resign because of it. We need to distinguish between the idea that something is wrong and that something requires a resignation.

Boris Johnson’s personal morality is highly questionable, but on policy questions he frequently gets the big calls right

Violating lockdown rules in May 2020 was a matter many people were fined over. Perhaps the event Boris Johnson attended should lead to the organisers, or perhaps even the attendees, being fined. It also strikes me as extremely weird behaviour to hold a press conference telling the public they all had to meet in groups of no more than two then, less than a hour later, in literally the same building (presumably attended by some people that had organised the press conference and its messaging) hold an event attended by 40 people.

However, we need to get our priorities right here. We should care about holding our leaders to account when they misbehave and subjecting them to fines like everyone else when required. But I’d much rather have a prime minister that gets the big calls right on key policy questions but wrongly drinks wine with others in his own garden, than a prime minister who abides by every detail of lockdown rules but gets the big policy calls wrong.

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