How Partygate could do for Johnson as Black Wednesday did for Major

A City of London worker buys a copy of the Evening Standard with a headline relating to the ERM crisis in 1992, known as Black Wednesday. Photograph: Richard Baker/Corbis/Getty Images

Memories came flooding back as George Soros lambasted Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in Davos last week, although 30 years ago it was sterling rather than authoritarian leaders that the arch speculator had in his sights.

As 1992 wore on, pressure on the pound intensified until on 16 September it was blown out of Europe’s exchange rate mechanism (ERM). John Major’s government never recovered from what was quickly dubbed Black Wednesday, so complete was the humiliation and loss of public trust.