Boris and Trump might be gone – but unless we change our politics, we’ll get more malign leaders

The electability of Johnson and Trump resided in their effectiveness as communicators and ability to channel vast populist appeal, writes Mary Dejevsky. Just because they've broken their parties and been discredited, doesn't mean their success was a flash in the pan

We could soon see something similar to them again in the future (Getty)

It is no more than an accident of timing but the parallels are hard to avoid. Over the past week, two big political figures, one on either side of the Atlantic, have been bitterly denouncing the systems that once enabled their power and now want to eject them.

Both are furious, both are challenging the legitimacy of the processes used to evict them, both are speaking of a “witch hunt”. And in both cases, a political consensus has cheerfully danced on what is hoped will be their political graves.

In the UK, or at least in the so-called Westminster village, there was a palpable sense of vindication after the parliamentary privileges committee published its excoriating verdict on Boris Johnson. The committee found that the then prime minister had not just “deliberately misled the House” multiple times, but had impugned the committee and been “complicit” in its attempted intimidation. How could there be any possible way back for him from this?