Boris thought he was Caesar – now he’s just a guest at Caesar’s Palace

He doesn’t want to be waking up five thousand miles away from the mess of his own making. He wants to be right in the middle of it, rolling around, writes Tom Peck

The details, as ever, reduce the role of the satirist to that of typist (PA)

Could anyone have predicted that, eight months after leaving office, Boris Johnson would wake up in Vegas with the police wanting to know what he’s been up to?

Rumour has it that this latest knockout blow to his already entirely irredeemable reputation may have put him off his buffet hotel breakfast before repeating his one speech for his next six-figure payout.

The details, as ever, reduce the role of the satirist to that of typist. As is well known, Johnson refuses to admit that he misled the House of Commons first when he said that no parties took place in Downing Street during lockdowns, secondly when he said that yes actually they did but he didn’t know about them, and thirdly when he said he didn’t know about them but had actually attended them.

Instead of acknowledging any wrongdoing here, he has insisted the taxpayer pay for his lawyers to make some attempt to argue the above, presumably with a straight face. But what has actually happened is that in the course of defending the transparently indefensible, they have come across yet more evidence of the indefensible: illegal gatherings at Chequers this time, and have, as is their legal and professional obligation, passed that information to police.

He has, as only he can, threatened to sue the cabinet office for “defamation” over suggestions he could have “further” broken Covid regulations, something for which he has already been fined and paid the penalty.

Johnson was a journalist once, twice in fact, if you consider his being sacked for lying at the end of one journalistic career and the beginning of another, so he is meant to have a passing understanding of the law around defamation. The idea that, in saying something about someone, you have “lowered their reputation” in some way.

Accusing Johnson of breaking Covid regulations is about as defamatory as asking Yogi Bear to explain what’s been going on, as he wanders out of a wooded area with a newspaper folded under his arm.

Well, that might not actually have happened. It is only, as far as we can tell, Johnson “supporters” who have let it be known that he has threatened to sue the cabinet office. And the only thing that unites Johnson “supporters” is their quite staggering stupidity, made most manifestly obvious by the utterly unswerving loyalty to the most sociopathically disloyal politician, and quite possibly human, in all of British history.

Naturally, those of us who earn a living taking the piss out of British politics – stealing a living, quite frankly – can only offer silent prayers to the almighty that Boris vs the Cabinet Office might make its way to a libel court near you. Johnson, we presume, would have to pay for his own legal team, so naturally it won’t happen – but we can but hope.

He might consider starting a crowdfunder. I personally would pony up at least a few hundred quid just to see the judge’s face, while Team Johnson explain how their claimant, who has been done for breaking the law, has since then been defamed through absolutely nothing beyond the passing of evidence of law breaking to the police.

That’s it. That would be his whole case. The criminal suing someone for not accusing him of doing a crime, but merely passing evidence of possible criminality to law enforcement professionals. This man, believe it or not, really used to be the actual prime minister.

And whose fault is all this, by the way? That’s right – “the blob”. The Johnson fanzines disguised as newspapers are full of quotes from “Johnson supporters” who are angry with the blob, and have declared that “nothing is off the table” with regard to what they might do to “the blob” by way of retaliation, just as soon as they can work out what exactly it is.

Once upon a time, this sort of thing might have been sufficient to make a person angry. Now, it’s just hilarious. Sit back and enjoy.

Some of us probably thought it had peaked when the actual prime minister claimed in the actual House of Commons to have not known about parties that he had himself attended. Now he’s threatening to sue his own lawyers which he didn’t even pay for, we did, and pinning the blame on a made-up word.

Of course, there’s a suggestion that, despite all this, Johnson wins and we lose. There is absolutely no one left in the country who is still pretending that Brexit is anything other than the complete failure it was always absolutely certain to be. And yet, the man who almost certainly bears the most certain responsibility for it has made upwards of £5m in the last eight months and has just bought a 16th-century Manor House in Oxfordshire for almost £4m.

But I’m not so sure. People are only as hopelessly profligate with money as Johnson if they don’t actually care about money.

Johnson wants to be Caesar, not a guest at Caesar’s Palace. He doesn’t want to be waking up 5,000 miles away from the mess of his own making. He wants to be right in the middle of it, rolling around, kicking his excrement in his enemy’s faces. That’s the only thing he seems to enjoy.

There are, as ever, absolutely no winners. Apart from the satirists of course. We’re doing fine.