Sleaze can’t become a runaway train, Boris

EVEN for a regime that seems perpetually on the verge of careering off the rails, the damage Downing Street has inflicted on itself in two days of madness is astounding.

One can only guess at Boris Johnson’s true motives for his over-the-top response to the Owen Paterson sleaze scandal.

After all, the former environment secretary was caught red-handed lobbying for two companies which had stuffed his pockets with more than £500,000.

But the Prime Minister’s brazen attempt to rip up Parliament’s standards rules to prevent his Tory colleague being suspended has exploded in his face.

Now, after a ferocious backlash, the reforms have been scrapped. And shamed Mr Paterson (who found out about the U-turn from a journalist) has fallen on his sword.

While a spectacular humiliation for Mr Johnson, this is a very good day for democracy. Public trust in politics is invariably diminished if governments bend the rules of the game when it suits them.

As Lord Evans, the PM’s own ethics adviser, warned in a blistering intervention, by pursuing that path Britain risked slipping into being a ‘corrupt country’.

And what has all the chicanery, conceived in cahoots with belligerent No10 apparatchiks, actually achieved?

Mr Johnson has burned up considerable political credibility to avoid an outcome – Mr Paterson losing his seat – that has happened regardless.

If the North Shropshire MP had just taken his medicine without mutinying, he would almost certainly have been back in the comfort of the Commons after 30 days.

But after the Tories seemed to have saved him, he displayed not an ounce of contrition during a victory lap of TV studios – fuelling the anger that led to his downfall.

Meanwhile furious Tory backbenchers, whipped to defend the indefensible, are openly questioning the PM’s judgment.

In future, why would they bother wasting valuable political capital justifying contentious new policies to constituents if they fear the Government will change tack before the surgery door shuts?

On top of that, this debacle has generated a raft of dreadful headlines. Troublingly, floating voters may conclude the Tories are, once again, mired in sleaze.

However, Mr Johnson cannot say he wasn’t warned. While some kept a deafening silence, this paper was clear that by backing Mr Paterson in his hour of disgrace, MPs would bring a plague on Westminster.

Of course, Boris is a uniquely brilliant politician with an unmatched instinct for the mood of the man in the street.

But on this he has made a disastrous misjudgment. As on too many occasions, Downing Street appears beset by dysfunction and moral drift.

Before it is too late, Mr Johnson must take charge of this rattling train.