The political world splits in two whenever fresh evidence emerges that Boris Johnson does not think that life’s rules and norms apply to him. One faction, the majority, humourlessly harrumphs about standards and brands him unfit for high office. Another tries to excuse the latest infraction. It’s a grey area. It’s not a serious matter. There’s a vendetta against him.
Today we saw the latest case of Johnson finding it churlish to expect him to stick to the ‘network of obligation that binds everyone’ (a phrase that should be copyright of his Eton classics teacher, Martin Hammond). According to the Sunday Times, the BBC chairman and former Goldman Sachs banker Richard Sharp helped arrange a loan of £800,000 for Mr Johnson just weeks before Johnson recommended him for the plum broadcasting post. Mr Sharp says there was no conflict of interest. He had ‘simply connected’ people. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, a long-time friend and supporter of Johnson, said on television this morning that Sharp is ‘incredibly accomplished’ and that there is ‘no doubt he was appointed on merit’. These reassurances won’t be enough for many people.
Outside the political world, there is a third perspective on Johnson. The former PM is a slippery so-and-so, but politics is such a fallen calling that it doesn’t matter all that much. There is perhaps even a strange kind of honesty in his very shamelessness. Remember that frank admission during a previous sleaze furore, over the possibility of him arranging a job in government for his wife, that a ‘psychological transformation’ of his character was ‘not going to happen’. Johnson’s approach has always reminded me of an upmarket version of Chris Jackson, the ‘crafty Cockney’ character in the 1990s comedy The Fast Show, whose catchphrase was: ‘I’m a little bit werr, a little bit wayy, a little bit dodgy!’
Tory MPs must soon decide whether that third perspective is shared by the voters. Whether it’s worth giving the greased albino piglet another run around the sty, or whether his cavalier nature is simply incompatible with being PM. There is a very real prospect of a faction of Conservative MPs seeking to re-instal Johnson in Downing Street before the next general election. The party needs to decide, once and for all, if it can handle him.
The likely verdict is not much fun. If the Tories are through with Sunak already and want to make yet another change of leader, they would do far better to look for someone compelling like Johnson but with a more reliable moral compass and serious political programme. Last time around, Johnson’s character flaw enabled his political opponents to erode very rapidly the vast stocks of political capital he acquired when winning a landslide majority in December 2019. By the middle of 2022, he was so diminished that his parliamentary party – all wings of it – lost confidence. Those who always despised him were pleased by this, but there was no giant conspiracy against him among Tory MPs, just a never-ending series of bad scrapes that eventually took their toll.
Given he has been perfectly straightforward that he will not change his ways, it would be foolish to expect a different outcome from a second Boris premiership. A recall would be akin to deploying him in a ‘special teams’ role. He would be like a conversion kicker in American football, brought on to do one thing (in Johnson’s case win an election) and then sent back to the bench. The British public surely won’t put up with that, having been sold mid-term quitters by the Tories three times in a row already – Cameron in 2015, May in 2017 and Johnson in 2019.
It will not come as music to the ears of Nadine Dorries or Jacob Rees-Mogg, but the humdrum truth of it is that the Tory tribe in Westminster is simply far too tired to go through all this again.
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