The most revealing aspect of Boris Johnson’s resignation statement was when he said he was “leaving parliament – at least for now” (Boris Johnson resigns as MP with immediate effect over Partygate report, 9 June). However, it wasn’t the predictable evidence of Johnson’s remarkable self-confidence that was interesting; rather, the truly revealing thing about the former prime minister’s bulletproof sense of entitlement was what it shows us about the rotten state of British politics.
In any healthy politics, a man with Johnson’s track record of lying and incompetence would be finished. But Johnson’s belief that he will be back is merely following the lead of fellow Old Etonian David Cameron and Cameron’s equally privileged erstwhile sidekick George Osborne. Polly Toynbee wrote this month that Cameron is “shamed into silence by his Greensill greed. As for Osborne, he deserves the sort of public condemnation … that should see him stripped of all the undeserved rewards showered on him since leaving parliament”.
Sadly, in a country that gives virtual immunity to the gilded alumni of its elite public schools and universities, massive political failure is no guarantee of obscurity. Like Osborne, I expect Johnson to be around in high-profile national positions for some time yet.
Joe McCarthy
Dublin
• Re Boris Johnson’s resignation statement, in the Oxford English Dictionary, the “very definition of a kangaroo court” makes no mention of a long-established parliamentary committee taking nearly a year to gather and consider evidence from multiple sources. Nor of the person under consideration having access to a quarter of a million pounds’ worth of publicly funded legal representation. And I thought Johnson was supposed to be so good with language.
Robert Foster
Reading, Berkshire
• Boris Johnson’s strategy is obvious. He backed Brexit believing it would fail. David Cameron would eventually go and he would offer himself as the unifying candidate to a badly divided Tory party.
This time, out of parliament, he will have no part in the run-up to the Tory defeat at the next election, but there are constituency parties who will certainly want him as their candidate. Elected, he will then put himself forward as leader to a demoralised parliamentary party, as someone with a track record against Keir Starmer and the ability to win elections. He can take the constituency parties for granted.
All this is dependent on the British politicians and public having the long-term memory of a goldfish.
Eoin Dillon
Dublin
• Both Boris Johnson and Donald Trump exude all the characteristics of spoilt children. If things don’t go their way, they will claim to be the victim, resolutely fail to recognise their own culpability, blame everyone else around them, smash up everything within their grasp and try to manipulate the adults to feel guilty. When such children become adults, and then politicians in positions of power and accountability, the behaviour continues and risks the very basis of democratic accountability.
Peter Riddle
Wirksworth, Derbyshire
• So Priti Patel, always in tune with the feelings of the country on such matters, describes Boris Johnson as a political “titan”. Well, she is at least 60% right.
Andrew Ashley
Henllan, Denbighshire
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