While much of Britain is outraged, Tories are praising Boris Johnson’s powers of survival. They too are beyond shame
Digest for a moment the words of Sir Charles Walker, a Tory MP once bent on toppling the prime minister, but no longer. “Love him or loathe him,” says the lapsed rebel, comparing his party leader to a cricket all-rounder who averts apparently certain defeat by taking five wickets and then smashing a century, “Boris Johnson is an extraordinary politician. He just rewrote the script.”
There’s been quite a lot in that vein since the Metropolitan police announced that Johnson will face no further criminal sanctions, despite his running Downing Street like a student dorm while the rest of the country was locking down against a deadly virus. Even Johnson’s more sceptical colleagues have been putting on their “You’ve got to hand it to him” faces, marvelling that even as the police announced that No 10 was the venue for 126 breaches of the law committed by 83 people, the prime minister himself will face no more than the single fine he received last month for attending a birthday party in his honour. The talk among Conservatives – one part infuriation, two parts admiration – is that Johnson is once more the “greased piglet” of David Cameron’s memorable description, slipping out of the grasp of the perennially frustrated butcher who wants his head.
Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist
