We still have a democracy, but the thuggishness of this government increasingly mirrors the behaviour of far-off, discredited regimes
Wanted: someone to advise King Herod on care of firstborns. Sorry, that should, of course, be “Boris Johnson on ethics”. The successful applicant must be impervious to embarrassment, willing to work all hours just to keep track of all the allegations, and even then probably resigned to following the two previous independent advisers on ministerial interests out of the door in due course. Assuming Carrie Johnson couldn’t be tempted, it’s hard to imagine where Downing Street hopes to find a new keeper for the prime minister’s conscience, after Christopher Geidt became the second handpicked moral arbiter to resign – this time in alarmingly mysterious circumstances.
In a letter finally winkled out of a reluctant Downing Street today, Lord Geidt said he had quit after being put in an “impossible and odious position” over government proposals that risked a “deliberate and purposeful breach of the ministerial code”, without elaborating. Whatever fresh hell this signifies – Johnson’s response suggests something to do with protecting the British steel industry from an influx of Chinese steel, which is a sensitive issue in some “red wall” seats; but, as ever with the prime minister, it feels like only half the story – Geidt clearly saw it as opening the door to more widespread flouting of the code.
Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist
