Boris Johnson may have escaped Partygate – but he’s running out of luck

Editorial: The public made their minds up about Mr Johnson a long time ago and concluded he was not a man to be trusted

(Dave Brown)

It is difficult to see anyone emerging from the Partygate affair with even a shred of honour.

The Metropolitan Police, for example, after dragging its heels over investigating the breach of public health laws, assigned 12 officers to the case and reviewed hundreds of documents, photographs and CCTV evidence. The cost approached half a million pounds. Some 126 fixed penalty notices were issued, which makes Downing Street the hottest of lockdown party hotspots.

The effort was worth it, given that the integrity of public health regulations is at stake, yet the prime minister mysteriously escaped with only one fine – and that from what appears to be one of his less egregious alleged breaches of the laws he designed and implored others to follow. Fixed penalty notices seem to have been issued for events the prime minister attended, or “participated in”, yet he seems to have slipped under the radar. It may be that he got away with it on the basis of technicalities. It does not feel like justice has been done on an equitable basis.

Some of the officials in Downing Street plainly should be ashamed of themselves, but there’s not much sign of punishment beyond the modest fines they’ve paid. The fact remains that the prime minister is the first to have held office and had a criminal penalty imposed on him, and he doesn’t regard that, or the culture of hypocrisy he inculcated in Downing Street, as a matter of resignation. It is Boris Johnson who comes out of this sorry saga with the greatest dishonour. It is, unfortunately, no surprise that he appears to think the law doesn’t apply to him.

Even so, the judgements of the Metropolitan Police and their lawyers, eccentric and indulgent as they may be, should be accepted. Now that their processes are complete, the moment has come for the Sue Gray report to be published, in full and with all the supporting documentation and images. The public who sacrificed so much in the pandemic deserve nothing less than complete transparency. Given the leaky nature of Downing Street and its former employees, the dismal details will no doubt find their way into the public domain in any case.

No doubt, whatever the Gray report states, some will try and argue that the prime minister has been exonerated; that he has fixed the “culture” by firing those around him who he blames for the scandal (but not, obviously, himself) and the time has truly come to “move on”. Apart from devotees of the Cult of Boris, that is unlikely to wash.

The public made their minds up about Mr Johnson a long time ago – and concluded he was not a man to be trusted. Before, the electorate was prepared to overlook the flaws in his personality because he was a man of action and was going to “get Brexit done”. Now, after further exposure to the prime minister and his ways – and the mixed experience of Brexit – the voters are no longer prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.

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They have learnt, the hard way, that he is a man of inaction; even less reliable than they assumed, and didn’t get Brexit “done” after all – it hasn’t turned out anywhere near as successfully as he promised. He’s a bigger hypocrite than they thought, and all his sloganeering about “levelling up” remains just that.

The polls, by-elections and the local elections all confirm the steep decline in Mr Johnson’s party – and its chances of hanging on to power at the next general election.

There is one other casualty that deserves mention: public health itself. In the event that some other infectious disease demands compulsory public health precautions or a lockdown, the public will be disinclined to obey the rules – for the obvious reason that those ordering them to do so didn’t bother to abide by them during the last pandemic.

It is impossible to imagine anyone taking any notice of Mr Johnson pleading with people to stay home, protect the NHS and save lives, if that ever became necessary again.

Indeed, the emergence of a new more deadly variant of the coronavirus that demanded an emergency lockdown would mean that the prime minister would have to resign. His failure to respond properly to the cost of living crisis may also eventually result in his ousting by Tory MPs fearful for their seats and their grip on power. Mr Johnson is running out of luck.