Boris can’t dodge tidal wave of sleaze
WHEN you’re taking lectures on probity and morals from Sir John Major, you know you’re in trouble. The former PM who presided over a government that was sent packing with allegations of sleaze forever branded on their time in office must have found the air pretty thin when he inhabited the moral high ground last week, as the current administration lay engulfed by claims of corruption and dodgy deals.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson went to Glasgow to lecture the world about the dangers of climate change last week and the bushfires and flash floods it will bring about – but somehow managed to ignore the tidal waves of sleaze washing their way towards the door of Number 10.
It’s been written countless times before – and indeed I’ve referenced it on a number of occasions as well – that the politician Johnson admires the most is winston Churchill.
It is equally well known that one of the great old man’s favourite expressions was: “Carpe diem.”
It’s therefore entirely fair to ask just when will Boris “seize the day” and address the issue of sleaze, which is going nowhere any time soon.
Last week began with the emergency debate about parliamentary standards and a hope being expressed among senior Tories that Johnson would appear, be on the receiving end of unseen levels of incoming flak, show remorse, look chastened and seek to move on.
As one former senior Cabinet minister told me: ”The Prime Minister needs to take his lumps.
“So many of us have had trouble in our constituencies – he needs his constituency of MPS to let him see he knows how it feels.”
In the event the PM suddenly recalled a supposed long-standing engagement and appeared in a hospital in Northumberland.
All that did was allow the fury to grow and the newspapers to continue to control the agenda.
The first lesson taught in any crisis management course is to try to get a grip of the story as soon as possible and appear to be facing up to it – rather than appear – without a mask on your face – while (unexpectedly?) hundreds of miles away from the bubbling cauldron of dissent.
The geographical location of that hospital was ironic too, as it’s north of the famous Red Wall Johnson and his party so comprehensively dismantled in the last general election.
The PM’S success then was in no small part down to his raw instinct and uncanny knack of knowing how people were feeling and what they actually cared about.
They felt they’d been left behind, had been ignored by the elite and wanted the Brexit many had voted for delivered. Last week that was as absent as his mask.
If he really thinks voters aren’t as astonished as they are aghast at some of the revelations, he’d be a suitable case for treatment at that hospital he visited last week.
The most egregious part of it all is that he brought this all on himself.
His “Owen goal” over the catastrophic handling of the Paterson affair is the root of this “cluster shambles”.
AS HEADLINE follows headline of greed and even possible corruption, we’ve now reached the ludicrous position of discussing whether any MP should have a second job. How has the line between being a paid consultant for a business that you then unfairly champion – using the influence of your role as an MP – become blurred with working as a doctor or author, as some MPS do?
Inside Downing Street they’re desperate for the “caravan to move on” and these stories to dim.
Undoubtedly at some time they will, but the key question is how much lasting damage will have been inflicted. For Sir John Major the answer was swift and brutal. He was out at the next opportunity.
If Boris is to hold on to the job he has coveted all his life, he must display the sort of leadership skills we have yet to witness.
Tories maintaining it would be worse under Labour, and at least Boris is NOT Sir Keir Starmer is simply not enough.