Here’s the thing. You won’t find any sentient being who will tell you anything other than that Boris Johnson was a total disaster during his Commons statement on the Sue Gray report on Monday. Narcissistic, tin-eared, deceitful and graceless would be some of the kinder descriptions of his behaviour.
And yet. Little more than an hour later, Big Dog was locked in a committee room in Portcullis House with almost the entire Tory parliamentary party, giving the performance of his life. At least that’s how those backbenchers – surrounded by ministers and party whips – who were present, chose to report it. MPs who had gone into the room as sceptics left an hour later totally charmed. Clearly you had to have been there to fully appreciate his killer reference to himself as Othello. Though hopefully someone later explained to him and Carrie what happened to Desdemona. The Suspect clearly has a lot of work to do before starting on his Shakespeare biography. Like reading some of the plays.
Then, it’s uncanny that it always seems to be that way. One way or another, Johnson saves his best efforts for when there is no reliable audience. Just a few tame stooges who are easily bullied. Perhaps it’s stage fright. If only he could reproduce his star quality on the big stage, then we might all appreciate his exceptionalism. His genius.
Think how frustrating it must be for Big Dog to realise how few of his best lines reach the general public and that all most people know of him is that he’s a shit liar. Think also how frustrating it must be for The Suspect to have to rely on other halfwits to spread his talent on the news channels. People like Nadine Dorries, who spit and snarl conspiracy theories into any passing microphone, safe in the knowledge she’ll never hold a cabinet post again. People like Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has never knowingly been right about anything. People like Paul Scully, who will be suffering from PTSD for years following his mauling at the hands of Emma Barnett on Newsnight.
People like Dominic Raab. Come Tuesday morning, it was the justice secretary and deputy prime minister who had drawn the short straw of trying to explain why The Suspect had done nothing wrong even though No 10 was the subject of 12 separate police investigations. It didn’t go well. Long before the end of the final interview, Dom’s anger vein was pumping wildly with psychotic rage. It would be at least another three murder day for him. He just had to hope the bodies weren’t recovered from the Thames for some weeks.
So what was the prime minister sorry for, Nick Robinson asked on Radio 4’s Today programme. Raab literally didn’t have a clue. Apart from the obvious about being sorry he had been caught. There again, how could he? Even Big Dog doesn’t know why he’s saying sorry and can’t bring himself to even affect sincerity. He still somehow believes he is the innocent victim in this and that somehow all the parties happened to him.
All that Dom could manage for a full seven minutes was an increasing tetchy and terse “no comment” as Robinson tried to find one thing that Johnson might conceivably feel sorry for.
Raab just shrugged. He supposed the fault might have lain in the structures of No 10. Perhaps if there had been a proper office for the prime minister then someone in the building might have noticed that endless parties with everyone getting pissed was not a good look. But, as it was, there was no way Big Dog could possibly have known any parties had taken place – not that he was admitting there had been parties – because no one had told him he was breaking the rules he had made.
As Robinson became more and more frustrated, Dom retreated further and further into his shell. It was all Raab could do to stop himself from referring to Johnson as “The Suspect”.
Or “My Client”. Not that you could imagine anyone wanting Dom as their lawyer as his knowledge of the law appears extremely limited. He also claimed that The Suspect couldn’t possibly comment on any of the parties he attended as it might prejudice the ongoing police investigation. It would if Johnson tried to lie about them, I suppose. Then what else would Boris do?
Raab ended by saying he hoped the Metropolitan police wouldn’t investigate too thoroughly – why break the habit of a lifetime? – and besides it was possible they turned up nothing in which case there would be no need to publish the full Sue Gray report.
After all, who wanted to see pictures of Boris lying face down in a flower bed? Or staff shagging on the children’s swing.
And he definitely wasn’t going to repeat the Jimmy Savile conspiracy theory lie, even though he saw no harm in Big Dog having accused Keir Starmer of protecting one of Britain’s most notorious paedophiles, just in case he got taken to court for slander.
There was no lower for Raab to get, so the BBC showed him the door. There was no need to open it. He could ooze and seep underneath it.
It wasn’t difficult to wonder if all the grown-ups had long since left No 10. A feeling reinforced later in the day when first a spokesperson said Downing Street had no intention of revealing if the prime minister received a fixed penalty notice, only to reverse ferret several hours later when someone realised it would be impossible to keep this a secret.
As for Big Dog, he was in Kyiv trying to persuade the world he was doing something other than trying to hang on to his own job.
A day trip that ended with a press conference that only confirmed the futility of the jaunt. Both the BBC and PA asked Johnson about the parties and observed if he was a serious player in the efforts to secure peace, he’d have taken Vladimir Putin’s call the day before. The Ukrainian media ignored The Suspect entirely.
They knew he was irrelevant and they focused all their questions on President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Johnson’s search for meaning remained unrequited.
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