All politicians benefit from the odd stroke of luck but few as much as
Boris Johnson.
He is lucky that the Ukraine crisis has distracted attention from the Downing Street party scandal.
And he is lucky that it has given him the chance to play the statesman with his sombre address to the nation today. If there was a whiff of Winston Churchill in his words it was entirely deliberate.
His initial response to Russian aggression was so lacklustre it saw him compared to Neville Chamberlain rather than his cigar-chomping hero.
Johnson is desperate to cast himself as a stirring war leader who is valiantly leading the anti-Russian alliance but the truth is somewhat different.
During the Brexit referendum in 2016 he was accused of being a “Putin apologist” after he claimed the EU’s foreign policy was partly to blame for Russia’s annexation of the Crimea.
His record of standing up to Vladimir Putin has hardly improved since then.
The Prime Minister failed to act on the 2020 Intelligence and Security Committee report that warned of Russia’s malign influence in Britain.
The Conservative party has continued to accept donations from oligarchs who have ties with the Kremlin.
Ukraine is the one instance where he has come late to the party.
