Tory infighting might benefit a country desperate for the unified, tolerant political leadership that the Conservatives can’t supply
In office, Boris Johnson never took the blame for his mistakes, and never thought there was a time to walk away with dignity. So it was hardly a surprise that when his parliamentary lies caught up with him on Friday, he resigned as an MP with a psychologically revealing parting shot. In his own mind, Mr Johnson was a victim not of the facts and evidence but of a cross-party committee’s “egregious bias”. It never occurred to him that a leader overthrown amid chaos – as he was last summer – should take responsibility for the disarray.
Mr Johnson was not “forced out of parliament”. He ran away from a fight with the Commons privileges committee, whose report into Partygate apparently lands knockout punches that floored Mr Johnson. The yet-to-be-published conclusion is expected to say that Mr Johnson misled parliament about lockdown parties while prime minister; the committee was expected to recommend his suspension as an MP for more than 10 days, which could have led to a byelection that Mr Johnson didn’t think he would win.
