In the old silent movies, the hero used to extricate himself from his predicament accompanied by the words “with one bound he was free”. The phrase could serve as the political motto of Boris Johnson, dubbed the Great Houdini for confounding previous predictions of his demise.
He awoke yesterday morning to find the front pages and TV news broadcasts focusing on a celebration of his birthday during lockdown in apparent breach of the rules. That’s it, said the pundits. All over. Yet by the end of the day, things didn’t look so clear cut.
The expectation that matters would come to a head this week with the publication of a report by the senior civil servant Sue Gray was temporarily stayed when Cressida Dick, Commissioner of the Met Police, announced that her force would conduct its own investigation.
No 10 sensed an opportunity to delay Ms Gray’s findings until the police had concluded whether there was any case to answer for breaching the lockdown regulations. That could take weeks. But when the Met indicated it would not object to Ms Gray’s report coming out since these were not matters likely to end before a court, Downing Street was forced to back down. The report may yet come out this week.
Ms Gray is said to have found prima facie evidence that eight parties breached lockdown regulations, which could result in fines for those involved, possibly even the Prime Minister. Were that to happen it might galvanise Tory MPs into firing off the 54 letters needed to trigger a no-confidence vote.
With anger running high with the incessant drip-drip of allegations, Mr Johnson’s best hope of survival is for Tory MPs to shy away from the dislocation that would be caused by a leadership contest. In truth, he is less a Houdini than a Mr Micawber, always confident that something will turn up. Indeed, it already has with the threatened invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Mr Johnson took the chance to make a statesmanlike appearance in the Commons yesterday to call for Western unity in the face of the Kremlin’s aggression.
In this he was performing the proper task of the Prime Minister; but it allowed him neatly to contrast “Cakegate” with the stark realities of a real crisis. Moreover, when Labour’s Angela Rayner raised the latest revelations in the chamber, a claque of Tory backbenchers had been corralled to support Mr Johnson and emphasise the successful vaccine roll-out, the refusal to enforce tough controls during the omicron surge and the strong diplomatic position the UK has adopted over Ukraine.
Perhaps the Prime Minister can see a way out of his plight, charting a path across the political quagmire that would see lesser mortals swallowed in the mud. But there are two questions here – not just can he survive but should he? Many say that his integrity and authority have been shot to pieces by the cavalier culture in Downing Street during lockdown, with staff blithely flouting rules the rest of us followed diligently.
His supporters maintain it is ridiculous to topple a Prime Minister over such trivial matters. But that is not the point. Many of us felt the rules were disproportionate, but we obeyed them because they were the law of the land. We did so under protest but observed them none the less, in some cases even when it meant not being able to say farewell to dying relatives. It is hard to forgive insouciance in high places while there was such misery elsewhere. The law is not just for little people, as some in No 10 appeared to believe.
However, the fact that there is now a police probe is not of itself a reason to resign. Tony Blair was interviewed twice in 2007 (though not under caution) in connection with the “cash for honours” scandal. At the time, Labour called it a “passing political hoo-ha”, while the Conservatives demanded Blair’s resignation “in the national interest”. Plus ca change…
The parallel with Mr Blair is not an auspicious one for Mr Johnson, as the Labour leader left office a few months later to avoid a leadership challenge. Can the Tories engineer something similar, a deal to let Mr Johnson remain in No 10 before standing down later this year or early next? That would require the Prime Minister to agree and he shows no inclination to do so.
Then there is the argument that, with war looming in eastern Europe, now is not the time to defenestrate a Prime Minister. In fact, there is a long history of getting rid of leaders in a time of conflict. Lloyd George replaced Asquith in 1916 and Chamberlain was pushed aside by Churchill in 1940. More recently, in November 1990, thousands of British troops had already been deployed to the Gulf when Mrs Thatcher was forced out by a Cabinet putsch.
Mr Johnson seemingly retains the support of his top team – or at least no one has resigned as he did from Theresa May’s Cabinet, precipitating the crisis that led to her downfall. But the big question is this: if he manages to slither out of his immediate predicament, to what purpose? The eminent office he occupies does not exist simply to provide a vehicle for his greater glory. He remains Prime Minister under sufferance of his MPs who expect him to lead a government that is both competent and Conservative.
The recent shenanigans have convinced many Tories that No 10 is an irredeemable shambles, while others question whether the direction of policy can any longer be construed as Conservative. Under a Tory Government – albeit one assailed by a pandemic – the tax burden is rising to a 70-year high, more money is being poured into an unreformed NHS and an unfeasibly precipitate dash for carbon “net zero” risks harming living standards and growth.
This raises serious questions about the direction of policy that transcend other considerations. Opposition to high taxes and excessive, wasteful, spending should be a Conservative article of faith, one central to the concept of a free country. There is a moral case for lower taxes that only the Tories can credibly espouse. If he does bound out of this mess, Mr Johnson needs to make these fundamental tenets of Conservatism the bedrock of his programme for government, not just seek survival for its own sake.
