Let’s take a closer look at what Allegra Stratton describes as Boris Johnson’s ‘honesty and integrity’

The newspapers have been full of horrific details about one of the prime minister’s semi-recent extra-marital affairs, though you wouldn’t know it from this press conference

Jennifer Arcuri alleges she had a four-year affair with Johnson – but hey, that hardly matters (-)

Fourteen rather long months since plans began for a new media briefing room in Downing Street, at last there has arrived a day on which it might be vaguely safe for Boris Johnson to open it.

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the lockdown is easing. On Sunday, London recorded its first day with zero Covid deaths in over six months. This, surely, would be as safe as it gets. And it was. Everything’s going great, the prime minister explained. Just great, confirmed Messrs Whitty and Vallance.

Alright, for the second day running the newspapers were full of horrific details about one of the prime minister’s semi-recent extra-marital affairs, and the somewhat tricky detail that a business run by the other party in said affair received £126,000 in public grants. But come on, that hardly matters.

Yes, this sort of thing might be career ending for anyone still hoping to cling on to their last ounce or so of shame, but this is Boris Johnson we’re talking about. It is truly a testament to the uniquely low expectations he has conspired to set for himself that no one could even be bothered to ask about it.

When it emerged that Donald Trump had paid hush money to a porn star, the world hardly managed a shrug. And so it is with Johnson, the heir to the now tried-and-tested shock-and-bore strategy. In some ways, one has to admire the achievement.

He leads a government that says what it wants, does what it wants, doesn’t do what it doesn’t want, never apologises, never explains, certainly never resigns and absolutely nobody expects any different anymore.

If events felt strange, that would have been because, for the most part, questions were asked and were by and large answered. Things are going well, but caution is still needed. We’re getting there. Slowly slowly.

This grand room was not principally built for Johnson, but for his new press secretary Allegra Stratton. In a typically Johnson-era turn of events, it was all the idea of Dominic Cummings, who imagined that by televising the daily lobby briefings, politicians could go directly over the media’s head and thus generally subdue and undermine them. But then Allegra Stratton was hired to do the job, setting in motion a chain of events that led to Cummings resigning.

Read more:

• Flying the union flag is a good idea – it’ll feel like celebrating Prince Andrew’s birthday, every day
• No one can be bothered to care about Boris Johnson’s lies anymore – and that means he can’t be stopped
• It is agonising to read about the treatment of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – how can humans be so cruel?

Stratton is expected to do her first televised briefing on 17 May. Today’s happened via private conference call, as is the current Covid-secure way. So on today’s evidence, coming soon to a rolling news channel near you, and in front of a brand new bright blue background, will be such questions as: “The prime minister has talked about treating women with respect. Does he believe he treated his wife with ‘respect’ when he had sex with Jennifer Arcuri hours before appearing alongside her and the Princess Royal at the Paralympics?” To this question, those listening would be told that the prime minister had acted with “honesty and integrity”.

He had, in fact, acted with “honesty and integrity” when he had taken Arcuri on various publicly funded trade missions around the world. And he had also acted with “honesty and integrity” when he had failed to declare the nature of their relationship, or indeed any relationship between them at all, to the appropriate authorities at the time.

It is, naturally, agonising to have to hear a journalist of such impeccable track record and reputation as Stratton have to come out with such transparently obvious garbage. Her own personal agonies at having to do so must be profound. It’s bad enough on a private phone call. That it will soon be on the television for all to see scarcely bears thinking about.