Boris Johnson must go

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Boris must go. Not only is he an incorrigible liar. There is an even worse fault, of which mendacity is only the outward and visible sign. One reason why he can lie so frequently and so fluently is because he is not restrained by either a political compass, or a moral one. There are two consequences. First, his party is now besmirched by sleaze and dishonesty. Those taints are not yet indelible, but they could become so. Second, and almost worse, the Tories are throwing away an opportunity to reshape British politics.

When either party wins a general election with a large majority, there are always predictions that the next one too is in the bag and indeed that the other lot may be finished. That is not how British politics works. Victories in I945, 1959, 1966, 1987 whow apparently impregnable majorities can rapidly crumble. In the event, 1983 and 2001 both turned out to be a two-Parliament success, yet that is not what it felt like at the time. The only gold-plated double election win came in 1997.

Back in December 2019, a lot of Tories thought that they had won a similar triumph. The optimism seemed justified. Labour was deeply divided, between those who insisted that Corbynism could eventually prevail and those who not only thought that this was nonsense, but also prayed that they were right. As for the Liberals, they were like squatters in the ruins of a once-great house, unworthy alike of their historic name and their traditions.

But thoughtful Tories did not base their hopes only on their opponents’ defects. They saw a chance not only to exploit Jeremy Corbyn’s weakness in order to seize the moral high ground for one election. They believed that they could make the occupation permanent. 

Post-Blair, Labour seemed reduced to a sole electoral tactic: frightening the voters about the Tories’ plans to privatise the NHS. With every passing year, this became more and more implausible. David Cameron hostile to the NHS? As someone has said, donnez-moi un break. Labour hoped to profit by memories of Mrs Thatcher’s political body-language – as opposed to her actual social-democratic spending record on health – but as the decades passed, it was harder and harder to frighten the children by threats that Maggie will get you.

Even if no-one had ever been quite Lafferite enough to argue that tax cuts could finance higher spending on health, wise Tories regularly proclaimed that only a healthy free-enterprise economy would produce the resources to fund good public services. Although so-called austerity had made it more difficult for David Cameron and George Osborne to hammer home those points, they were there for the taking. That could have been Boris’s chance. Although there are still Tories who enjoy reminding hungry sheep about the price of grass, that has never been Bojo’s wing of the party.

Two Christmases ago, with the electoral map at his feet and, as we then thought, Brexit done and dusted (the Northern Ireland degringolade is not his fault), Boris could have launched a debate about the role of the state and the best way to organise public services – so that they actually serve the public. Tories should have been able to assert that while Labour would spend for the sake of spending, they spend for the public’s sake. Why should the taxpayer not get the same value for money for a pound that the state spends on his behalf, as he does when he spends one of his own pounds?  In such a rational debate, all that was left for Labour would have been a Leftward move, calling for socialism. Let them.

The idea of Boris Johnson capturing the moral high ground is a delicious irony. It was also an impossible one. It would have required Boris to transform himself into someone capable of appointing strong ministers and thinking through complex problems. Thinking?

Unthinkable. He has never thought a complex problem through in his entire life. Nor is Covid an excuse. Before he fell ill, he should already have appointed a general to take charge of the medical front, and a first-rank minister to ensure that the rest of government policy did not lose momentum. Either Michael Gove or Jeremy Hunt would have been a sound choice. Moreover, Covid did not oblige him to lie over flats, parties and dogs taking priority over humans.

So there are now two questions: when does he go, and who comes next? Before the 1964 US presidential Election, LBJ greeted his running-mate, Hubert Humphrey, as follows: “Hubert, Aah’ve got your balls in mah back pocket. You better be careful Ah don’t sit down.”

Though they would never dream of using the same language, two men are now in a position to say something similar to Boris. They are Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary, who has been investigating the No.10 parties, and Lord Geidt, the Standards advisor dealing with flat costs. In the last resort, the Cabinet Secretary is the man who has the PM’s back. If he felt obliged to walk away from that role, he would turn into the assassin who sank the biggest dagger between the shoulder-blades.

Christopher Geidt could rival him. It has become known that he is so unhappy about being lied to by Boris that he came close to resigning. Yet there is one consideration that might have inhibited him. He used to be the Queen’s Private Secretary. That has nothing to do with his current responsibilities. But would the more irresponsible newspapers acknowledge that? Or would there be headlines: Queen’s top Mandarin forces PM to quit?

Even so, it is hard to see how Boris can avoid severe censure. It is equally hard to underestimate his shamelessness, but many of his MPs have now had enough. Right up until Margaret Thatcher’s final phase, a lot of her backbenchers would have died for her. For Boris? This side of death, Nadine Dorries will be loyal, as she should be. He is the only PM who would ever have put her in a Cabinet – which is another reason why he should not be Prime Minister. Beyond Nadine…?

Over the Christmas break, Tory phones will be busy.

There is a problem. In an ideal world, a long and thoughtful debate would now take place. Jeremy Hunt would offer grown-up leadership. Could he also offer excitement? Rishi Sunak has that quality, but a lot of Tory MPs think that he is too keen on tax and spend. Could he reconcile them to fiscal restraint, with tax cuts as soon as possible? There is also a limit to his ability to go on manoeuvres while he is a Cabinet Minister. That should also apply to Liz Truss and Michael Gove. But Truss is not Prime Minister material while a fair few people have not forgiven Michael Gove for stabbing Boris in the front back in 2016. That seems odd, because who apart from Nadine Dorries now believes that he was wrong to warn us that Boris was not up to it? Yet this most idealistic of men, especially on education, is widely thought of as a mixture of Machiavelli and Iago.

Outside the Cabinet, Tom Tugendhat has never concealed his disdain for Boris and has a sound grasp of foreign affairs. In the junior Ministerial ranks, Kemi Badenoch would make a good candidate, even if she had no hope of winning. The debates would be more interesting if she were participating, at least in an early stage.

Prime Ministerial debates could help to persuade the voters that the Tories do not only stand for wine, cheese, wallpaper – and lies. The world has rarely if ever been more dangerous in peacetime. Back in the UK, promoting growth while constraining inflation remains a formidable challenge, and Covid has not gone away. These times demand a Prime Minister with proven ability and impeccable integrity. Instead, we have a buffoon who lurches from lie to lie. As a growing number of Tories are coming to realise, retaining him in office is an insult to the country.

The mechanism of departure is not clear. Perhaps events will provide one. The Duke of Clarence drowned in a butt of Malmsey. Might Boris be drowned in a barrel of porkies?

Whatever the method, he must go.