Party scandal slides off Teflon Johnson
Time, the publication of “interim findings” in January, and the fact that the “juiciest contents” of Sue Gray’s longawaited report had already been leaked, meant the final version felt “like being presented with a birthday cake with some of the slices already eaten”, says Camilla Tominey in The Daily Telegraph. The report “speaks” to Boris Johnson merely “popping in” to events briefly, as does the photograph of him toasting staff at a leaving party. Gray has “actually ended up watering down her conclusion” by acknowledging the changes that have already been made at No 10. “So Teflon Johnson lives to fight another day, although I doubt the Standards Committee investigation into whether he lied to parliament will prove as much of a cakewalk.”
Tory MPs didn’t need any new information to judge Johnson’s fitness for office, says Rafael Behr in The Guardian. We have known for months that laws were “flouted” and that the person ultimately responsible broke the law. “When asked about it in parliament, he lied.” If enough Tory MPs wanted to force his resignation, they would have done so by now. Nor is there a substitute with “talents obvious enough” to make ditching Johnson a “lowrisk gamble”. Meanwhile, postponing action reinforces the impression that he is a master “escapologist”. “Their weakness is his strength.”
“There was, until recently, a conservatism that recognised the rule of law as a foundation of democracy and recognised the intrinsic villainy in politicians who excuse themselves from the rules they impose on little people,” says Behr. The choice of Conservative MPs to continue under Johnson’s leadership is “existential. The longer they enable a form of government that recognises no principle other than the prime minister’s entitlement to power, the harder it gets to explain what other values the party represents.”