The voters knew what Boris was like from the beginning

LIKE a snowball rolling down a hill or a fire that starts smouldering, then suddenly bursts into life, a political scandal can start to feed off itself once it really gets going.

So from a little local difficulty with a former aide, Boris Johnson now finds himself assaulted on all sides by allegations and angry accusations that, if you listen to some commentators, will bring his government crashing down.

Labour, in desperate need of truly sticky mud to spread across the Conservative administration, have suddenly found themselves with what they think is a surfeit of the stuff.

It was enough for one of the party’s most senior MPs, Dame Margaret Hodge, to this week declare Mr Johnson “unfit for office” while others described his government as a

“grubby cabal.” But while the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg and her broadcaster pals, aided and abetted by some national newspaper journalists, get all hot under the collar at the scent of political blood, what does the masked man or woman on the top deck of the bus from Dartmouth to Plymouth make of it all? Not a great deal, is my guess.

There are (at time of writing) three things that the PM is said to be guilty of. All are pretty much denied.

They are, in no particular order, asking a Tory donor to help with the cost of sprucing up the Downing Street flat he shares with his fiancée and their baby son; saying he would rather see “the bodies pile up” than order a third coronavirus lockdown, and promising tax breaks to a businessman who said he could provide ventilators to help patients with coronavirus fighting for their lives.

Students of political knockabout will know that each of these charges has a subplot of its own which the PM’s critics would like to be taken into consideration. But, even I – as a close follower of political intrigue – can’t quite join up all the dots to make any of this into something that is truly earth-shattering, although it doesn’t make for happy reading.

Alastair Campbell, himself no stranger to political controversy when he worked for Tony Blair, summed it up best with an attack on the BBC. Complaining that the broadcaster was refusing to show a piece of film he claimed demonstrated Johnson “lied at the despatch box”, he said the Beeb had “priced in that Mr Johnson was a liar”.

That’s perhaps a bit strong. But it is true that voters, who gave Mr Johnson a thumping majority of 80 seats in 2019, generally knew what they were getting and are probably not entirely surprised that there is a degree of controversy now swirling around this government.

If you want a Prime Minister with a squeaky clean reputation and a cast iron, unimpeachable reputation for honesty and fair dealing, you get

Theresa May. She threw away the Tory majority in 2017.

Admittedly, politicians have been brought down by lesser scandals. But it mostly happens when there is a credible and well-liked successor in the wings. Although the sleaze allegations have dented their lead, the Tories are still ahead in the polls and Sir Keir Starmer has yet to really break through as a threat. Within the Tory ranks, there is also no obvious successor to Mr Johnson, right now.

That’s not to say Mr Johnson might not still fall on his face, even before he gets to defend his majority at the next General Election.

He is an accident-prone politician with a chaotic back story that is likely to be his undoing at some point.

But right now?

I doubt it.