Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid have decided they’re finally done with 2022’s full-scale debasement of public life. Who’s next?
Watching Dominic Raab react to Simon McDonald’s bombshell letter live on air this morning was like watching a character in a movie discover he’s been dead all along. When Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid resigned this evening, Boris Johnson should have been realising something similar.
A big day for Big Dog, then – who has surely had his day. Even as Raab was touring the studios pushing the latest Frankenstein’s monster of a line on what No 10 knew – and when – about multiply accused sex pest Chris Pincher, the former head of the diplomatic service was releasing a letter to the parliamentary standards commissioner blowing the whole thing apart. There had been formal complaints in 2019 about the man Johnson went on to promote; they were investigated and upheld; and Johnson was briefed in person about the investigation and outcome. “You get to the point when you have to do the right thing,” observed McDonald later, with deadly mildness.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
