Conservative hubris is creating a corrupted and incompetent system of politics that must be reclaimed
Boris Johnson tries to depict himself as a leader like Winston Churchill. It would be more accurate to see him as a leader like the Grand Old Duke of York – no, not the current one, but the one who marched his troops up to the top of the hill and then back down again. Having gone to the extraordinary length of igniting a sleaze scandal by getting his MPs to try to save Owen Paterson from suspension and overturning the parliamentary standards regime on Wednesday, less than 24 hours later he abruptly abandoned those corrupt decisions. The result: instead of creating one debacle, Mr Johnson has now landed himself with two.
Responsibility for this shambles is widely shared. Mr Paterson, who dramatically resigned as an MP on Thursday, is himself part of the problem. He showed no contrition or acknowledgment of possible wrongdoing for two years. After Wednesday’s whipped vote, he paraded across the media, once again, as the innocent victim. When his hubris caused embarrassment to other MPs, he walked away altogether. The truth is that Mr Paterson has jumped before he was pushed, because Thursday’s U-turn left him facing almost certain suspension next week. If he had behaved with an ounce of sense, not a hundredweight of pride, little of this might have happened.
