It seems likely that MPs will vote on Monday to approve the report of the Commons Privileges Committee condemning Boris Johnson for misleading the Commons (though many Conservatives may abstain or will be deliberately absent).
That is not to say that the report was wholly convincing in every respect, or that the Committee members were all entirely impartial. It is a pity that the committee chairman, Harriet Harman, made her hostile views known in advance; and while there is no doubt that staff in Downing Street broke Covid rules which were applied rigorously to the rest of us, there remain nagging doubts about whether the then PM knew about all the things his staff got up to, or whether he just believed advice from his press people about whether the rules were being kept. What is clear is that if he didn’t know, he should have known and that he presided over a chaotic environment while ordinary individuals were fined for the smallest breach of the rules.
The pity is that he could have handled all this differently. He could have admitted to lockdown failings before the House of Commons, confessed that his staff broke the rules, allowed that he sinned by omission as well as commission in failing to monitor what was happening and apologised for that and his own conduct. He can carry off these things with bravura panache, but he didn’t. Instead he anticipated the publication of the report by resigning and precipitating a by-election.
Boris Johnson is and was a large figure in our national politics; it would be a pity if his career ended in this sorry way.
Spot on, Rufus
RUFUS Norris, the departing artistic director of the National Theatre, had to accept a cut of £850,000 in the theatre’s Arts Council funding as a result of an agenda that is diverting money away from London at the expense of companies such as the English National Opera. Norris observes that London’s contribution to the country’s “creative status in the world totally outweighs the small amount of money that we’re talking about.” He is right. Arts Council England should ponder his observation that London is the “global city of arts” and reverse these bad, philistine cuts.
Glenda the great
WHAT a wonderful actress Glenda Jackson was. Her Oscar-winning performance in Women in Love remains unforgettable and she preserved the fierce intelligence of her art in later life, not least playing King Lear in 2016. And not many Left-leaning actors translate their views into becoming an MP. Glenda Jackson gave a brilliant performance in life and in art. Fortunately, her last role, with Sir Michael Caine in the forthcoming The Great Escaper, will soon remind us just how great she was until the end.
