Boris Johnson’s Partygate lies destroyed him, but we helped to make him.
It's hardly surprising that Boris Johnson is running away rather than be held to account for his Partygate lies and mishandling of Covid. What's surprising is that his party, the media, and the public, gave more and more power to a man entirely unfit to hold it.
The only surprising thing about Boris Johnson is that anyone is still surprised by the awful things he does.
Of course he resigned from the Commons rather than accept censure for lying to MPs. Serial liars aren't known for waiting around for the consequences of their lies to catch up with them.
And Johnson lies as easily as he breathes, then when he's caught out he lies again. When the lies don't wash anymore, he runs away.
He is a bone idle confidence trickster, a snake oil salesman masquerading as a clown, keeping you laughing so you don't notice your pockets being picked.
He has shown us who he is again and again. We have repeatedly chosen to ignore it.
There's little point in asking a man with no moral compass why he acts without morality. The real questions are for those who encouraged and enabled Johnson, knowing his rise debased Britain's politics, set dangerous precedents for the future, and shredded the country's international reputation.
It was always going to end this way
We all know the story. Sacked from The Times for inventing a quote, sacked from the Tory frontbench for lying to his leader, a journalist who's comfortable assisting in having other journalists beaten up, a man who believes in nothing beyond his own glory and enrichment.
What shocking luck to have a man like Johnson in charge during the gravest public health crisis in a century. Well, yes and no. Few of the people who put Johnson in Number 10 could have doubted the kind person they were elevating to the top of government.
"We're over him" one Tory minister told Politico this week. The more significant question is why they were ever under his noxious spell.
It's been obvious for many, many years, that Boris Johnson's story would end this way. This is who he's always been. Only working this out now is nothing to be proud of.
The Idiot King Across The Water
Devoid of power, Boris Johnson is kind-of entertaining. His crazy-haired bemused toff act appeals to many of us -- the wealthy man, born to greatness, who evidently couldn't run a market stall without setting fire to it.
The inexplicable bit is the leap from enjoying his performative buffoonery, and interpreting it as a suitable CV to run one of the world's biggest economies.
As London Mayoral candidate in 2008, Johnson was chaotic, and clearly knew next to nothing about the job. But he was elected, in part because Londoners were tiring of Ken Livingstone, and in part because, as one friend put it to me at the time, "it'll be a laugh, won't it."
He spent two terms in City Hall doing as little as possible in a job he treated so casually he did his final year alongside being the MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip.
He flounced out of the Foreign Office after spectacularly screwing up one of the most important jobs in government, and reverted to his most comfortable position, hurling shit around his own cage like a furious, impotent ape.
It's the role he's now returned to, after showing the constituents of Uxbridge the same respect he showed to the whole of London when he made being Mayor a part-time job.
The Idiot King Across The Water, condemning the chaos he created, blaming others for the catastrophe of our short-lived experiment with appointing a D-grade carnival act as prime minister.
Who's really to blame?
Johnson's dwindling band of fans will continue to dream of the day he fulfils his Arnold Schwarzenegger promise to be back -- even though he left office less than a year ago with his already tarnished reputation in tatters.
Corner shops near to GB News' studios will stock up on tin-foil, for the hat-wearing Boris loyalists queueing up to repeat whatever gibberish he spews at them, lapped up by credulous newspapers.
But running a country is a serious job, and there are consequences to letting desperately unserious people do it. Economies fail, reputations are tarnished, and vast numbers die avoidable deaths after a whiny, petulant child in a suit declares the bodies can pile high.
We didn't create Boris Johnson, but we enabled him. We laughed at him, we voted for him, and as we did so we lowered the bar for leadership.
Maybe we should pay more attention in future.
