It is said that compared to the crisis in Ukraine, N0 10’s offences were trivial. But the PM must pay for this abuse of power
Now that the Metropolitan police have issued 20 fines to government officials for violating the Covid rules they were tasked with drawing up, there are two things we can conclude about Boris Johnson. Either, when he declared less than four months ago that “all the guidelines were observed”, he was completely ignorant about the laws he was directly responsible for – or he repeatedly and shamelessly lied. There is a third possibility – he had no idea what was going on in the prime minister’s official residence – that is too insulting to anyone’s intelligence to even bother indulging.
Which of the two options is true is interesting as an academic debate, but both provide the same answer to the basic question: “Regardless of your political standpoint, is this person fit for high office?” Let’s indulge it anyway. Johnson is, notoriously, not known as a details man. If the phrase “educated beyond his intelligence” could sprout arms, legs and a contrived untidy mop, it would be him. Oxbridge does not, unfortunately, lack his type: mediocre youngsters ensconced in privilege, whose pretentious vocabulary and unnecessary use of Latin disguises a lack of depth and knowledge.
