Boris Johnson’s waiting game
Boris Johnson’s admonition to backbenchers and ministers of the Tory Party alike was to wait — wait for the Sue Gray report. He didn’t want to commit himself to any specific course of action until the report was published. Sue Gray is a Conservative Party bureaucrat whose eponymous report was supposed to render the final verdict on why Boris and members of his inner circle held at least 16 alcohol-fuelled parties while the rest of the nation suffered in lonely isolation during the Covid lockdown.
So having no other choice we waited. And the report came out. The report was necessarily non-specific and indistinct because the Metropolitan Police requested that it be so. The Met was conducting its own investigation. Nevertheless, the report was condemnatory in a vague sort of way and to the minimum extent that we already knew it would be, but said that it is now for the police to make a final determination.
After many kerfuffling apologies and bromides about how “we must never let it happen again,” the prime minister promised that internal changes are being accordingly made. He concluded with the Nixonian pledge that he now must “get on with the job that I was elected to do.” He then proceeded to enumerate his accomplishments including “getting Brexit done” and overseeing “the fastest Covid vaccine rollout in Europe.”
In other words there will be no resignation, and that has been his plan all along. His timing was as good as it could be under the circumstances. In the interim, five of Johnson’s top aides have resigned over the scandal that has inevitably been dubbed “partygate.” But last night on ITV and BBC News the story of partygate finally fell from its top spot and became only the second story of the night. Johnson’s waiting game may be paying off at last, and he just might weather this scandal as he has weathered his numerous previous scandals across his checkered career.
Meanwhile at least 20 letters of no confidence have been submitted to the chair of the 1922 Committee. Should that number reach 54 a vote of confidence will be called. It is a vote that Boris is sure to win, but win or lose it does not bode well for his long term political survival. Nevertheless Boris hangs on, and he probably will continue to hang on until or if he is ousted by his own party or by the voters in the next general election.
Boris Johnson is a product of a system that is sick. It began at Eton — what British comedian Jonathan Pie calls “a sort of Hogwarts for wankers where he was taught Latin and tax evasion.” Then Boris inevitably went on to Oxford, the Petri dish that has bred 11 of the last 14 British prime ministers, including Margaret Thatcher, Theresa May and David Cameron.
For most of them — and Johnson is no exception — it has been a life of white privilege. The usual rules apply to everyone else. With people like Boris the only chance they ever get to talk to regular people is when they instruct their chauffeurs where they want to go next.
It is against the rules to call a fellow member of Parliament a liar and can result in ejection from the proceedings for the remainder of the day. Recently the Scottish National Party’s Ian Blackford was ejected for calling Boris Johnson what he is — a liar. Labour MP Dawn Butler was ejected last July for the same offense. Johnson is notorious for telling “porkies,” which is Cockney rhyming slang for pork pies (lies). He is, in short, a serial liar.
Boris Johnson clings to power like a Trumpian barnacle. As with Trump, for Johnson the humiliation of clinging on to power no matter what is more compelling than the honourable act of falling on his sword. Like Trump, Johnson loves power too much, and he will never voluntarily relinquish the premiership until it’s snatched from him by force of law. In the meantime he plays the waiting game and hopes the uproar caused by this latest scandal will pass. Given the short attention span of the public and the never ending cycle of drama of world events it probably will. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.