The system is broken – we need another solution to the scourge of sleaze

Editorial: We believe it is too late for piecemeal action. The abuses are too widespread, have carried on for too long and their impact on public confidence has been too corrosive

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Boris Johnson must put sleaze behind him. That might seem a tall order, given his own casual attitude towards the normal rules of financial and personal probity. His behaviour has been disgraceful at many levels. But it is powerfully in his own self-interest, in the interests of the Tory party and of parliament, and vastly more important for the good of the country as a whole that this demon should be laid to rest.

We cannot go on like this. This is not just about politics. It is about democracy. Our parliamentary system is under the gravest threat since the Second World War, arguably before. If there is to be one set of rules for the grandees and quite different ones for everyone else, then we slide towards anarchy. When an MP cannot see that there is something wrong in lobbying on behalf of companies that are paying you, or a newly elevated peer cannot grasp that becoming a lord in exchange for a party donation is not acceptable, then the country is in deep trouble.

The prime minister has up to now managed in some measure to escape electoral punishment for his and his colleagues’ misdeeds. His popularity ratings have fallen sharply, but the Tories apparently maintain a narrow lead over Labour in the opinion polls. He has his huge majority and did win a general election in 2019 with the largest share of the popular vote for 40 years. But the winds of politics shift, and a chill one is already blowing from the north. His newly elected backbenchers did not come to parliament to be smeared by sleaze. They were voted in to try to level up the country, not to be sucked down by Westminster financial manipulation. They are angry, and rightly so.