No one who knows Boris Johnson’s reputation accepts that his meeting with Sue Gray, the senior civil servant investigating his Partygate shenanigans, was about “process.”
Johnson, a political shyster to his fingertips, would never have let the chance pass to try to steer the report into the long grass.
It has been widely reported that he has suggested there is no pressing reason for Sue Gray to even publish her report, with so much already established and in the public domain.
Those who know her by reputation as a civil service enforcer will know that kind of slippery move would just harden the conclusion of her short interim document in which she blasted “failures of leadership and judgment” in No 10.
But it’s typical of Johnson’s attempts to hide the truth from the public on just about every subject. Even if the question is something as basic as “how many kids have you got, Boris?”
The report itself, due out today, is likely to be bad news for Boris – but will only be the certificate stamp on what we already know.
The photos of the booze-strewn parties, the insider accounts of a party culture where those who objected to the lockdown rules being broken were mocked, the lonely deaths endured while Johnson boozed through Covid, have sickened the nation already.
When he goes, and surely even the most spineless of Tory MPs must agree he should, Johnson will be remembered as a charlatan, a cheat, and a liar whose extraordinary ego hitched itself on to the populist nationalism of Brexit and managed to con the oldest political party in Britain into a spiral of self-destruction, wrecking the country along the way.
He can’t go quickly enough. Publish and be damned, Sue Gray.
Sort out railways
Less than two months into nationalisation and ScotRail is in a full-blown crisis that is hitting travellers hard.
Nicola Sturgeon said on day one of nationalisation the Scottish Government would take accountability for our railways and any problems occurring.
Taking the railways back into public hands was welcomed but at the first sign of crisis Transport Minister Jenny Gilruth has attempted to shift the blame.
She cannot shy away from the mess which has seen about 700 services slashed.
Scotland’s economy is trying to get back on its feet after Covid but this disruption is delaying that considerably.
Public-run railways were supposed to be a good news story but so far it has proven to be the opposite.
It is time for Gilruth to take some responsibility, front up and sort out the mess hitting commuters so hard.
