To pick this precise moment to give Gavin Williamson a knighthood reveals much about Boris Johnson. Why doesn’t the prime minister just give Gavin a gas field, or a bank, and make him honorary president of British Fencing? No 10 probably felt yesterday was a good day to bury bad news. Instead, there was plenty of fury at the revelation that yet another useless person has been deemed sufficiently useful to Johnson to receive an honour. Sir Gavin joins Lord Lebedev and far too many others. Say hello to the wallygarchy.
Given the ever more horrifying events in Ukraine, this local reward for failure can obviously be regarded as a trifle. On the one hand, it doesn’t exactly matter if Gavin Williamson is made a knight of some corner of an irradiated Europe. On the other, it’s telling that exactly at the moment the occupants of Downing Street are trying to reach for moral stature, they remind you just how small they really are.
