Reminds me of the babe

He was never going to make a dignified exit because he never knew how to make a dignified entrance. When Boris Johnson became leader of the Tory Party, almost everyone who had worked with him told us he was not trustworthy. His lies were apparently “priced in” to his appeal. His supporters never tried to say that he was not a liar, more that somehow the lies did not matter.

Now they do. So as he prepares to give evidence to the Privileges Committee , his outriders are saying that any claims he misled Parliament about parties during lockdown in Downing Street are being investigated by a committee that is itself unlawful and biased.

The big question remains “Did he lie to parliament?”. Clearly he hopes it will get lost in a farrago of innuendo about the members of the committee and Sue Gray herself. Though the committee comprises seven MPs – four of which are Tories – Johnson is gunning for Harriet Harman, saying she has prejudged the case, and for Gray as she has been in talks with Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, over a role as his chief of staff . Those talks now do seem to be a mistake, yet what Johnson is really saying is not that these people are not fit to judge him, but that he should not be judged at all.

He clearly considers himself above the law. Rules are for others; this, after all, has always been his modus operandi. His attack dogs Nadine Dorries and Conor Burns are out there trying to undermine the committee before his four-hour performance. What a sordid business this all is.

As ever, this is not about the good of the party or the country; it is about one man only. It will disrupt the cabinet – as Braverman is said to back him – and any notion of Tory unity. It will remind us all of the chaos of the Johnson administration and the darkest times of the pandemic.

Johnson has already been judged. He was fined by the police for a party on June 10. We have seen the pictures of him at parties. We have read the messages sent to him. There were parties on November 13 about which he was quizzed in the Commons by Labour MP Catherine West. He insisted the guidance was followed and no rules were broken. He stuck to this line. Jack Doyle, his own director of communications, said of the June birthday party : “I’m struggling to come up with a way this one is in the rules in my head”. He said it could not be “argued it was necessary for work purposes. Also blows another great gaping hole in the PM’s account doesn’t it?”.

There were so many gatherings perhaps he will hope, too, to bamboozle the committee, arguing that he believed that they all had “workplace exemption” and what he said in the House was only what he was advised to say. “Not me guv, I was just doing what I was told,” is highly dubious coming from a man who never does what he is told.

The public has made up its mind. Especially those whose loved ones died alone and whose funerals were small bleak affairs as they stuck to the rules. A lot of the Tory party have too; there is no way back for him but he refuses to hear that. There are those who still think he is charmed, that lockdown was unnecessary, that his rule-breaking is less important than his ability to win elections.

I am sure he will put on the show of his life on Wednesday but many are exhausted by this Trumpian post-truth blur of deceit. He may take us for fools but we are not one of his cast-off mistresses. The utter self-belief that propelled him to power is now revealed as monstrous arrogance. His clowning looks cheap and disrespectful. One sees the occasional glimpse of the politician he could have been when he talks about Ukraine but he will be remembered more for ridiculous wallpaper than any great geo-political stance.

As for getting Brexit done, he didn’t. Sunak wants rid of him, which is why he has given his MPs a free vote on the inquiry findings but whether the overly sentimental Tories can bear to admit they, too, were misled is doubtful. It is possible he also loses his seat but quite frankly it is difficult to see why he wants to remain an MP when he can travel the globe making his rehearsed “off the cuff” speeches. Funny enough the first time, less so the second.

For the veil has lifted, that unpredictable moment has happened when a joke is no longer funny, when an actor loses the audience, when the old lies no longer work. Power has drained away from him and that was obvious on his mad dash back in the leadership contest. A party has to look forwards; the Tories are mired in looking backwards. They have not got over Thatcher but any hope of a reinvention for Johnson is wishful thinking.

To see him kicking and screaming about being made accountable is a revolting spectacle. It serves to remind us of why he should never have been in power, not why he should be again.

The kindest thing to say is that he believes his own lies.

Thank god, the rest of us no longer have to.