Gohnson

 

“It is a far, far better thing that I do now than I have ever done; it is a far, far better  rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

 

Ex-Prime Minister Johnson might have salvaged a smidgeon of decency in his reputation by a farewell sentiment such as the above.  Instead we have had a petulant justification of his trail of misconduct in office, coupled with  a vilification both the parliamentary processes and personnel that have condemned him.

But the real responsibility for his cavalier premiership,  gravely damaging to Britain’s reputation as well as the well-being of many of “the British people”  on whose behalf he was  so fond of  claiming to be acting, are the people who put him there.

Over 200 of the 350 or so Conservative MPs placed him on the final ballot for the party members to chose as leader.  All of them would have self-interest in furthering their own political careers as part of their motivation, but most of them would surely have balanced that with a solid sense of responsibility for the reputation the country, with the welfare of their contents and, indeed, the wider world.  But they didn’t. 

Similarly two thirds of the 150 000 or so Conservative Party members voted for Johnson in the final run off.  Some would have been akin to the “hard-faced men who look as though they had done well out of the War” whom the then Conservative leader Stanley Baldwin observed on the Commons benches back in 1918.  But many (and today including women) would be responsible and respectable local citizens, with their own personal ambitions, ambitions, true, but also working hard as councillors, magistrates, activists and pillars of the community to serve their local populations.  Yet they knowingly placed their faith in a popular but provenly dishonest and irresponsible charlatan.

Both groups would have been influenced by the predominantly Tory supporting press; in particular the Telegraph, Mail and Sun.

Poor Prince Harry has given his opinion in another context that both the government and the press have reached “rock bottom.” Such comments are, of course, beyond his brief, even as a “non-working” royal.  But he’s pretty much on the ball in this context too.

The one group to come out of this sorry affair with credit is the small Committee of Privileges.   Conservatives have a majority on this committee.  The Committee has stuck to the facts as they see them and taken a long-overdue step in the direction of restoring decency, accountability and integrity to Britain’s politics.