The danger of holiday hobnobbing with kindly billionaires

WHAT a futile mess the Prime Minister has got himself into over his Caribbean holiday. The truth is that nobody did anything actually wrong, and that the tycoon David Ross – who facilitated the trip – made matters enormously worse by giving varying accounts of the arrangements and who paid for them.

But it is an unalterable rule of politics that while you are explaining, you are losing. And there has been a lot of explaining. Meanwhile, a baffled public has been given the impression of freeloading and of confusion, which will not quickly go away.

There is nothing wrong with politicians going on holiday. In fact, given the mess they so often make when they are at work, there is a case for longer holidays for MPs and Ministers.

But the idea seems to have spread that senior politicians, like glittering showbusiness figures, are in some way entitled to high-end travel, cosseted at the front of the aircraft, accommodated next to secluded beaches far, far away from Skegness, or even the Algarve. And such behaviour means that those involved are beholden to those who have helped them, whether they mean to be or not.

This is a mistake. Those who wish to represent us, and who make enormous efforts to be elected, and stay elected, are rather obliged to live like those they claim to speak for. And for most normal families, especially among the former Labour voters Mr Johnson now seeks to woo, a holiday is something you save up for, and is well within your means.

There are plenty of hard-working people in this country who sacrifice holidays for things they think are more important, such as school fees.

In future, Boris Johnson would be wise to remember the dangers of holiday hobnobbing with billionaires, and be more modest.