Defending the indefensible prime minister over pandemic lawbreaking, one Conservative MP sniffed to the Financial Times: “It’s not as if he walked into a rave in Ibiza.” I mean … all the clubs in Ibiza were dutifully shut, what with it being a pandemic? But yes, how encouraging that Amnesia holds itself to a higher standard than No 10.
Today marks 1,000 days of Boris Johnson’s premiership, and you have to agree he has truly delivered on his flagship levelling down agenda. Johnson drags everyone to the bottom. In the afternoon of this totemic day, the prime minister was forced to stand up in the House of Commons – or the Bollocksseum, as his behaviour repeatedly casts it. Here, in the course of spouting some more utter cobblers, he acknowledged that he had been fined by the police for breaking a law. This was not only a law he had made himself, but one that he had stressed the absolutely vital importance of sticking to, every night on TV. Meanwhile, a load of Tory MPs will gibber their way across the airwaves to explain that this is no biggie. With the exception of those few backbenchers to have called for the prime minister’s resignation, the hardest line you’ll hear from any other Conservative member of parliament is that they are “waiting to see the local election results”.
To which the only possible retort is: why? Why do you need to wait for the public to tell you right from wrong? Don’t you think the public might be a bit busy with matters such as the cost of living crisis to have to explain the absolute basics to a bunch of betas whose job is supposed to include having a clue? Honestly, if you can’t work out that it is beyond a pisstake for the prime minister to make draconian new laws then break them himself, it does feel like your public service mechanism is completely shot.
Unfortunately, there’s a lot of it about. People break out the term “gaslit” for everything these days, but this is an occasion where it fits the bill. Contrary to what the Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis, claimed this morning, this is not like a parking fine, unless we’ve all forgotten the bit where the government cleared the broadcast schedules at 5pm every night to impress on the British people the life-or-death importance of not breaking parking regulations.
Last weekend it was reported that Johnson himself had kicked off his adviser Lee Cain’s leaving do by pouring the drinks. Picking back through the archives, it wasn’t so long after this event that HM government unveiled a hard-hitting new ad campaign, one image of which showed a woman being given oxygen as she stared accusingly into the camera. The caption: “Look her in the eyes and tell her you never bend the rules”.
What can you say to those defending the government not just bending the rules, but breaking the law? Look us in the eyes and tell us you didn’t tell us to look her in the eyes. Even the cake-assisted birthday gathering in the cabinet room for which Johnson has already been penalised by the Metropolitan police came not long after he had tweeted a letter in which he explained to a seven-year-old girl that she was right to cancel her birthday party. As the PM piously instructed the public in the attendant hashtag: “#BeLikeJosephine”. As has now been revealed, he himself continued to #BeLikeBoris.
Speaking of stuff that seven-year-olds have grown out of, we know that Johnson is a big fan of The Lion King, recently quoting the movie’s “change is good” line when several of his closest No 10 staff walked out on him. Put simply, the Conservatives hanging on to Johnson now is like the entire pride hearing what Scar did but keeping him in post anyway. Weirdly, that wasn’t the plot structure Disney went with in the end – and they know a thing or two about popular narratives. Incidentally, any MPs who react to this analogy by inquiring rhetorically “then who and where is Simba?” merely make matters worse. Just go the whole hog and run the local election campaign under the slogan “THERE IS NO SIMBA – THIS IS IT.”
MPs who can’t wait to tell you “Boris always brings the house down!” haven’t yet realised that they’ll get buried in the rubble. You don’t need to be an esteemed political historian to work out that politicians defending prime ministerial lawbreaking will be doing something devastating and long-term to trust in the whole of politics. Then again, it does help to be one. On Sunday, the distinguished constitutional sage Peter Hennessy – not exactly given to intemperate public statements – declared of Johnson’s failure to resign for breaking the actual law: “I think we’re in the most severe constitutional crisis involving a prime minister that I can remember.” Describing Johnson as “a rogue prime minister, unworthy of [the Queen]”, Hennessy went on to judge him “the great debaser in modern times of decency in public and political life, and of our constitutional conventions – our very system of government”. As his diary entry for the day Johnson’s police penalty was revealed reads: “I cannot remember a day when I have been more fearful for the wellbeing of the constitution.”
Well, give it till the next fine drops. There’ll be another black day along soon enough. And that’s arguably the most genuinely poleaxing bit of the whole story. The prime minister’s defenders have still failed to grasp one of the most essential truths of Johnson’s lifelong practice of behaving badly then lying about it: that there is always, always more to come. Being dismissive about cake in the cabinet room is very obviously going to leave you hostage to fortune if it turns out that Johnson is fined for more serious lawbreaking down the line.
Yet his allies are currently sticking to variations of a defence that basically amounts to, “Hey – that birthday party was the least criminal thing he did!” By the time we get to the fallout over who did or didn’t pour the first vat of wine at Caino’s leaving do, Johnson will be forced into some truly batshit contortions. Are you familiar with sovereign citizens? A new breed of conspiracy wingnut who argue that, actually, they can opt out of laws they don’t think should apply to them? No? Then do make sure to bone up on them, because you’re governed by one.
In the meantime, consider the sheer amount of time that an entire government and parliamentary party appears willing to spend clearing up after one man. Did they really get into politics to do this? Are they really waiting until the public tells them to stop? It certainly looks like it. Even at this late stage in the game, Conservative MPs remain too wet to wield the knife, preferring instead to grasp the pooper scooper.
• Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
