Even when he’s caught red-handed Boris Johnson can’t stop himself from lying. It’s pathological. Reckless, even. The closer he gets to the end of his political career, the more outlandish the untruth. There’s not even the doubtful glamour of burning up like some latter day Don Giovanni. At least the Don recognised his own failings and embraced his immorality. The Convict gives no sign of being able to manage the basics of distinguishing between right and wrong. His narcissism and entitlement is total. He lives in a bubble, enabled by the nodding donkeys who surround him.
Only on Wednesday night had Johnson ordered the paymaster general, Michael Ellis – a man who lives for the public humiliation, “kick me, please, harder, harder!”, of defending the indefensible in the Commons – to come up with an amendment to frustrate and delay Labour’s motion that there should be an inquiry into claims the prime minister misled parliament.
Ellis duly did as he was asked and Tory MPs were told there was a three-line whip for them to back the amendment. And the education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, was sent out on the media round to make a fool of himself. Something he usually manages all on his own with no help from anyone else.
Then the whips started doing the maths and realised that, despite the Convict having a working majority of 75, they didn’t have the numbers to guarantee the amendment being passed. When the chips are down, there are fewer and fewer Tories willing to stake their careers on Johnson’s probity. Most aren’t dumb enough to be seen to actively block any investigation. They can see the writing on the wall. And it’s got Johnson’s name on it.
So after Charles Walker, one of the more gentle Tory MPs, had used Thursday’s business statement to ask the government to have a rethink – he also rather deludedly described Johnson as “an honest and decent man”, not even Boris’s friends would go that far – the Commons leader later announced that the amendment would be dropped and that the Tories would be given a free vote on the opposition motion.
At which point the Convict, who was on hols in India lecturing Gandhi on the virtues of telling the truth, declared to the hacks who were with him that he’d never wanted the amendment, that he’d never had anything to do with it and that he welcomed the inquiry he’s tried to delay. Breathtaking, even by his standards.
All of which took some of the heat out of the debate that followed. Even so it was a damning and demeaning few hours for what’s left of Johnson’s reputation. At prime minister’s questions on Wednesday we had seen Keir Starmer fuelled by hatred and contempt for a man hell-bent on dragging the country down to his level. Now we got a more statesman-like, more measured, Starmer. A man demanding to be heard in silence by both sides of the house. You got the feeling that even the Tories could start to see him as the next prime minister.
After apologising for having believed what the prime minister’s spokesman had told the Daily Telegraph about the BBC, Starmer tried to use the occasion to rise above party politics. What was at stake was more important than that. Labour did not have a monopoly on the truth, but it was incumbent on everyone to defend the principles of parliamentary democracy. If lying became the norm then it demeans us all.
And the Labour leader was in no doubt that the Convict had lied; he had lied at the dispatch box about parties in Downing Street, relying on the good faith of opposition MPs in not calling him a liar to wriggle free. So now it was up to parliament to put right what the Tory party would not.
All opposition MPs made speeches that were variations on the same theme. The SNP leader, Ian Blackford, made the most of the speaker’s temporary dispensation on unparliamentary language to repeatedly call the Convict a liar and to point out that the Tories had known his character when they had made him their leader. Though when Blackford mentioned that Johnson had lied to the Queen over the prorogation, that was too much for Lindsay Hoyle. The Queen might never recover from the idea the UK had a bent prime minister.
Labour’s Chris Bryant also spoke powerfully about democratic values, though was rather too quick to give Johnson credit for at least partially admitting his wrongdoing. Only that morning, Boris had insisted he hadn’t even unknowingly misled parliament.
The real interest in the debate focused on the few Tory MPs who had bothered to turn up. Most had wisely stayed away. Some, such as Bob Neill, merely vocalised their deep unhappiness but preferred to let others deliver the coup de grace on the Convict’s premiership. Baby-faced assassin William Wragg was once such Conservative. He reiterated his lack of support for the prime minister and declared that no Tory MP could be enjoying their job at the moment.
Steve Baker began by quoting Romans from the Bible, before going full old testament. He had been willing to believe Boris had repented up until the time he heard his lack of contrition in Tuesday’s 1922 Committee. So it was time for him to go. Vengeance will be his.
Of the backbenchers, only Danny Kruger offered wholehearted support. He knew Boris hadn’t lied because he had delivered Brexit. Which qualified him for idiot of the day. Dim Danny hasn’t yet learned that Johnson lied through his teeth to get Brexit done. And still is doing so.
It was left to Unctuous Ellis to wind up the debate for the government. And he wasted no time in thoroughly debasing himself. A man has to take his pleasures where he finds them. The fact that he had been left out to dry by the government’s U-turn only made it more arousing for him. The prime minister had only ever tabled the amendment so that he could almost immediately withdraw it, he purred. The Convict had apologised profusely. And he couldn’t comment on any other apologies Johnson might be forced to make. That was above his pay grade. But why couldn’t everyone just recognise that Johnson was a latter-day saint. More sinned against than sinner.
By the close, Ellis was just an oil-slick on the Commons carpet and the vote went through on the nod. Another nail in Johnson’s coffin. And a sign that even Tory MPs have some standards of decency in public life.
