Tories are hoping voters will forget Partygate – they won’t

The public has no intrinsic interest in forgiving politicians, writes Marie Le Conte

After you, prime minister: Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak (PA Wire)

What do Conservative MPs see in Boris Johnson? The question has been asked again and again – and again, and again – over a number of years, but never more so than in the past few weeks. Politically toxic, bad at governing and unable to tame his parliamentary party, the prime minister currently has few things going for him.

Still, he remains in post, at least partly because plotters do not know for certain that they would be able to topple him right now. It has been baffling to witness from the outside, like watching a friend sticking with their deadbeat boyfriend for no discernible reason.

As Stephen Bush pointed out in a column last week, the Conservative Party isn’t even stuck in stasis; the longer Johnson stays on, the worse things are likely to go for them in the long run. “The big lie that Tory MPs are telling themselves is that, as the rows over parties fade from the news, Boris Johnson will rebound,” he wrote. “And the big political problem with the Conservative Party’s big lie is that it may have real consequences for the Tory party as a whole.”