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The contempt was all the more serious because it was committed by the [then] prime minister, the most senior member of the government. There is no precedent for a prime minister having been found to have deliberately misled the House. He misled the House on an issue of the greatest importance to the House and to the public and he did so repeatedly.”
An interesting explanation for Johnson’s popularity with the Conservative party’s grassroots – those 170,000 mostly elderly people who nowadays elect our leaders – is that Johnson brought them “freedom from the reign of virtue”. They were “grateful” for the “frivolous” and the “fantastical” or, as Gimson once ventured to me on the radio, they “ wanted to be lied to”. In this strange world, virtue and the virtuous lurk as constant enemies, and any notion of public life as a bastion of morality is dismissed as dull and “goody-goody”, or even sadistic. Where once swivel-eyed schoolmasters beat their pupils to feel virtuous, Gimson recalls, perhaps from his own experience, now “such punitive urges” can be indulged by denouncing Johnson. A firm friend of Johnson, who in public would be considered one of his most prominent allies, reached a bleaker conclusion: ‘He’s a columnist, right? Columnists are used to writing their column, forgetting it and moving on to the next one. And you can’t as a national leader operate in that way. You have to follow through… He never made a transition from being someone who could entertain and attract attention and emotionally connect to the hard work of being Prime Minister. He was ill-disciplined.’ They hint darkly that there is plenty of ammunition to use against Sunak. Most notably, Johnson’s memoirs are scheduled to come out next year – probably the next general election year. As one supporter observed, archly: “They’re coming along …”We have concluded … that in deliberately misleading the House Mr Johnson committed serious contempt,” the committee said.
The committee was so enraged with Johnson’s behaviour that it even recommended he be stripped of the right to a former MP’s pass, for life. Payne points out that throughout his premiership Johnson was usually absent overseas during key moments of crisis. Out of country and out of touch he was unable to read the atmosphere and react decisively. Payne argues that Johnson was unable to survive the “three P’s” which cumulatively destroyed his premiership: the Paterson affair which dealt a fatal blow to relations with his MPs; partygate, which Johnson tried to brazen out; and finally the Chris Pincher affair which displayed his poor judgement. It was often said Johnson is not a ‘details’ person. That is too simplistic, according to those interviewed. When he needed to, on an issue of pressing importance or personal political risk, he dove into details. On the intricacies of the Brexit deal during talks, or Russian incursions in Ukraine, he would consume information. He could surprise ministers by drilling into unexpected details. ‘Nobody can go into a room and assume you can bluff with Boris,’ said Michael Gove. As I had appreciated from a 30000 ft height, there were a lot of issues that finally brought him down, but they all speak to his apparent belief that no rules applied to him and he could act with egregious self interest without suffering any consequences at all. It is fortunate that his party finally came to an end when his party finally had enough of this vile leader. However, I give them no credit since they were the most craven apologists for his shenanigans for far too long and really only decided to call time on him when it became clear he was an electoral liability rather than an asset. This mirrors the cravenness of GOP in regards to Trump although they still haven't broken with him in the US for the most part.The Prime Minister had just been told that the second most important figure in his government had quit. Rishi Sunak was out – and without giving his boss any warning. No meeting was requested by the Chancellor to explain his reasons, as had been the case with Sajid Javid, the departing Health Secretary, earlier that day, 5 July 2022. There was no conversation over the phone; not even a text. It fell to the Number 10 political secretary to tell his boss a resignation letter was on the way. Johnson was raging. ‘Who the f--k does he think he is?’ Preaching the Johnson creed to the end, Dorries said: “Any Conservative MP who would vote for this report is fundamentally not a Conservative and will be held to account by members and the public. Deselections may follow. It’s serious. MPs will now have to show this committee what real justice looks like and how it’s done.” This book points to the main reasons why Boris fell before he should have. There seems to be a finality to his tenure as soon as the book starts. I did find it very informative and it does give a good timeline of the scandals that but Boris. I think all the swearing could have been toned down though. Yes people swear but blimey... Jeremy Corbyn with former Blyth Valley MP Ronnie Campbell at a 2017 election campaign event. Campbell lost his seat in 2019, having been Blyth’s MP for 32 years. Photograph: Scott Heppell/AFP/Getty Images
Brendan Clarke-Smith, a Johnson loyalist elected in his 2019 landslide as MP for Bassetlaw, tweeted that he was “appalled at what I have read and the spiteful, vindictive and overreaching conclusions of the report”. The Fall of Boris Johnson is the explosive inside account of how a prime minister lost his hold on power. From Sebastian Payne, former Whitehall Editor for the Financial Times and author of Broken Heartlands. the public nature of Sunak’s willingness to hold Boris at arm’s length was different from that of other future rivals
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He could stay in office for some time. The Conservative Party is considered ruthless when it comes to disposing of its leaders, but the next general election is still almost three years away. Theresa May, Johnson’s predecessor, lost her political authority many months before she announced her resignation, in the spring of 2019. Most recently, the political gossip was that Johnson might be given a last chance to redeem himself, at a set of local elections in May. Rishi Sunak, Johnson’s chancellor—and possible successor—was noticeably absent when the Prime Minister apologized in the Commons. Like other prominent Tories, Sunak has said that a civil-service investigation of the Downing Street parties must be allowed to run its course. The investigators are expected to report by the end of the week. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month.
Westminster is a place of outsized egos, something Johnson could be forgiving about, according to allies. After all, he had always been an obsessive competitor himself. When playing one Cabinet minister’s nine-year-old son at tennis, he insisted on marking the score after every point. Aides who had played on the court at his Oxfordshire cottage joked that he used old balls scrubbed of fuzz to obtain an advantage. And he had once been so determined to gain the upper hand as London mayor that he snatched David Cameron’s notes off the table during talks, prompting a schoolboy-like tussle. Perhaps too soon to claim to be the definitive story, Sebastian Payne has nonetheless delivered a well written and serious analysis of a chaotic premiershipSunak and his allies played a part in Johnson’s downfall, but that should not be mistaken for swallowing the narrative – pushed by Team Boris – that his premiership only ended because of Sunak As Johnson liked to remind aides when things got turbulent, almost every Tory MP has half an eye on becoming prime minister. He spoke from personal experience. In the deadline-driven world of journalism he had a reputation for filing just under the wire. It was the same in government, as one Number 10 adviser explained: ‘One of Boris’s techniques is where the system leans towards taking decisions early, he will try to leave it as long as possible.’
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