Month: January 2022

There’s a Jon Pertwee Doctor Who story (bear with me, non-anoraks) which I often cite as the worst ever. The plot concerns the miners of planet Peladon, who strike in order to demonstrate to the Federation just how badly they are treated; but when the Federation turns up to investigate, the miners pretend to be working so that the Federation will go away again…

I mention it only because I was reminded of this bizarre turn & turn again of events by the news that the police, having ruled out looking into this Downing Street party business, prompting the government to launch its own enquiry instead, have now asked for the enquiry’s report to be put on hold because they have decided to investigate after all…

As a rule I always assume cock-up rather than conspiracy, but in this instance it’s very hard not to say it sounds like a cover up – delay after delay, presumably hoping the issue will go away in the meantime.

Throughout it all, in a breathtaking manner which would be almost admirable if it wasn’t so absolutely not admirable whatsoever, Mr Johnson remains Prime Minister with (after just the briefest of wobbles last week) the support of his party. It’s very hard now, really, to see that this story will topple him.

I suppose part of the problem is that, in an unspoken, unwritten kind of way these things have traditionally policed themselves, with people in that position ‘honourably resigning’. For example, in my youth I remember Cecil Parkinson, who absolutely had to fall on his sword after getting his secretary pregnant – nowadays, I can’t imagine even a single eyelid being batted at the news.

It’s like queue jumping. If you have the nerve to actually do it, even though it breaks another unspoken, unwritten rule, you will almost always get away with it. It’s the reason Mr Trump used to get away with so many outrageous things – not because he had any special ability or talent that his forty-four predecessors lacked, but because he didn’t care a jot about unspoken, unwritten rules.

Hardly an original observation (even Peggy in Hi-De-Hi has made it) but, Power Corrupts. I daresay that only five years ago Mitch McConnell would have absolutely refuted the suggestion that he would ever even tacitly support the claim of an ousted President that the election was rigged – but when it came to it, the appeal of remaining in power without integrity turned out to be stronger than the idea of being in opposition, with it intact.

The same is true here – once you’ve crossed the line (or in Boris’ case, crossed and crossed line after line) you’re no longer restrained by the consideration of conducting yourself in a proper manner. None of us really think that the government in 2020 WASN’T breaking its own regulations. But the events can be redefined as work events, as not being an offence, as being minor, as being (on paper) excusable. Ultimately, the only thing that will bring Boris down is if his own party is worried – but not about its integrity or honour or reputation, only about its chances of winning another election.

As if I’m channelling Auntie Beeb herself in order to apply a bit of balance I’d also like to moan about Sir Keir Starmer. Not about going to parties, which I don’t think he did, and not about having no honour, because I daresay he probably does (well, sort of). But because, with the government such a shambles, the Labour party ought to be riding high in the polls like it’s 1997 again. They’re not – and in fact if there was an election tomorrow I think it would be a brave person who claimed the Tories would lose.

Sir Keir has two jobs as far as I can see. One is to hold the government to account, the other is to provide a viable alternative. He’s doing a lot of the former, at the expense of the latter. I would respectfully suggest he spends less time focussing on what the Tories have been getting up to.

He needs to worry about his own Party.