He has vandalised the British constitution with his lies and hubris and is by no means fit to serve as caretaker PM
For seven years, Britain has been transfixed by the grotesque character flaws, overweening, principle-free ambition, recklessness, faux buffoonish “charm” and moral vacuum that is Boris Johnson. From the moment he re-entered the House of Commons in 2015, he has been a malevolent, demonic force dominating British politics – the author of a catalogue of betrayals and outright lies stretching from the falsehoods of the leave referendum campaign in 2016, his ruthless undermining of Theresa May’s prime ministership, his existentially bad Brexit deal and the implosion of his government last week. Vaingloriously boasting of his achievements that are nothing of the sort, he leaves his party politically bankrupt and his country economically menaced, constitutionally vandalised and internationally derided. Now, mercifully, he is heading for the door marked Exit.
Except he is still prime minister, the elders in the Tory party staying their hand in forcing him to quit. Unable even at the end to acknowledge in a graceless speech his own responsibility for being engulfed by more than 50 resignations from his government – brought to its knees by too many unwilling to serve under a serial liar who claimed he “forgot” the circumstances in which he appointed an alleged sex pest as his deputy chief whip – he remains at the apex of our national affairs for up to three more months. Once again, inflated by a sense of self-entitlement, he breaks the codes of our unwritten constitution for his own self-interest. He should stand down instantly. But today, as it has been for seven years, it is all about him and opportunistic calculations of personal advantage.
