Johnson’s Premiership Is a Cancer

Wednesday morning was the latest in a long list of opportunities the Conservative Party have had to operate on the cancer which is the Johnson premiership. They will spurn this one like they have all those that went before it.

At some point, that cancer - left untreated - will become terminal, and in its wake will be left the irreparable lowering of standards in office and a playbook for ruling through misdirection, obfuscation and outright lying.

That the Conservative Party is so willing to destroy hundreds of years of political convention to save the back of their sociopathic leader and their own jobs is a betrayal of what it once meant to be a Conservative.

Even as the words of apology fell out of his mouth in the House of Commons yesterday one had the distinct sense that Johnson wanted to make clear that he has been hard done by - though quite by whom was unclear. Inevitably, his contrition lasted just a few minutes before he was back to attacking the opposition benches - like the abusive boyfriend confronted with his own shortcomings, Johnson knows only how to punch, cheered on by the gawping sycophants on his front bench and safe in the knowledge that his partners in the press would be following his instruction to “move on”.

By the time the next general election rolls around Johnson may not have achieved much more from a policy perspective - he is after all incompetent as well as criminal - but the legacy he will pass on to his successors will be a weakened political system, vulnerable to yet more bad actors. We can only hope they aren’t better at it than Johnson was.

Published on 26 May 2022 – Politics