What a difference a day makes. On Tuesday Big Dog had been Hang Dog. Not remorseful exactly, as that would require a level of empathy and self-knowledge that is well beyond him. But certainly abject. Sorry for finding yourself in such a mess, if not for causing it. Sorry that he had reached the end of the road.
Come prime minister’s questions, the trademark defenses were back in place. The desperation of a leader, already on borrowed time, who is having to beg for yet another last chance. It’s a sight with which countless betrayed wives and girlfriends are all too familiar. First there was the surefire tell that Boris Johnson is about to start lying: the smirk (although these days it’s rarer to find a time when he’s telling the truth).
Then there were the desperate and petulant displays of temper, masquerading as banter, from someone who hates to be challenged. A man who consistently mistakes arrogance for genuine self-worth. Finally, there was the contemplation. Not just for opposition MPs but also for his own. Especially for his own. He has even less respect for those who buy his crap than those who call him out for the chancer he knows himself to be. Mostly, though, the contempt is for himself. Deep down, at a subconscious level, Boris knows better than anyone that he degrades both his position and the country.
PMQs opened with Christian Wakeford, the former Conservative MP for Bury South, defecting to Labor by taking his seat behind Keir Starmer on the opposition benches. A few Tories jeered as the Labor leader welcomed Wakeford to the party, and Starmer ad libbed that the chief whip must have told them to bring their own boos. That stung. It was meant to be their man, their Big Dog, who told the best gags. Now they didn’t even have that.
This was Starmer at his most relaxed. He wasn’t that bothered if Johnson went that day or in a week or month’s time. The exit was now priced in, so he would make the most of it and just have some fun with the prime minister along the way. He ran through Big Dog’s catalog of excuses.
First there had been no parties. Then he had been sickened and furious that others in Number 10 had had parties. Then he had been at some of the parties. Then he hadn’t realized the party he had been at had actually been a party. And in any case he had spent the 25 minutes at the party in a totally dissociated state, so he hadn’t noticed there were tables laden with food and booze and people getting pissed off.
Then when he had come to his senses and realized he was at a party, he had no idea such gatherings were illegal as no one had bothered to tell him what the rules were. Even though he had made them up and had spent an hour a day at press conferences telling the country what the rules were. The five stages of coming to grief.
Big Dog tugged at the toddler haircut and waved a paw dismissively. It all made perfect sense, only the entire country was too stupid to see it. “You’ll just have to wait for the Sue Gray inquiry to report back,” he said. Though even if Gray doesn’t directly apportion blame, it’s hard to see how Johnson comes out of an inquiry with a shred of credibility. Just imagine. The best Gray could say about the prime minister was that he had either been in a fugue state or that he was incapable of distinguishing between a party and a work meeting.
Starmer continued to expose the absurdities of Johnson’s lies and all Big Dog had to offer in return was more and more lies. He claimed the Tories had fixed the cost of living crisis when only that morning inflation had risen to 5.4%. He claimed to be proud of the work his staff did at Number 10 had done while boasting about how many he was going to sack to save his skin from him. Keep it classy.
He claimed it had been him alone who had made all the right calls on Covid when in the first year he had got most things wrong. He lied about the UK having the highest booster take-up in Europe. We don’t. The SNP’s Ian Blackford mentioned the record-breaking 175,000 who had died. Big Dog just sniggered, pulled faces and played with his watch from him. Still keeping it classy.
There was a small band of Boris loyalists, but most Tories were as unimpressed with their leader as the opposition MPs. None who spoke showed any flicker of support, preferring to keep things neutral. Thought David Davis. He went nuclear. Enough was enough. Quoting both Oliver Cromwell to parliament and Leo Amery to Neville Chamberlain, he said to a hushed chamber: “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. In the name of God, go.”
This wasn’t your average Tory malcontent. It was a respected old-timer, an arch Brexiter and longtime Johnson supporter who saw through Big Dog’s pantomime theatrics. Boris tried to shrug off the attack but was visibly shaken. He even said he had no idea where such a famous quotation came from. It makes you wonder if he actually wrote – let alone read – the passages in his book about Churchill that cover the early years of the war. Johnson the Great Pretender. Who can’t even cut it as a pound-shop Churchill.
It was telling that after this, only a few Big Dog diehards bothered to stay for his statement declaring that Covid was as good as over. Boris ploughed on regardless. Even though 438 people had died the day before and the NHS was stretched to breaking point, Johnson was removing all remaining restrictions because that was popular with his party. Besides, if you’re incapable of sticking to the rules, you might as well get rid of them.