Oh for heaven’s sake, come off it. British politics has long had a comfortable relationship with the absurd but this week – not yet over, its revelations not yet exhausted – takes a very pretty biscuit nonetheless. I do not imagine that 'Downing Street apologises to the Queen for party revels' is quite the kind of headline Conservative prime ministers dream of.
And while Boris Johnson has a copper-clad alibi for the suitcase-of-booze party in as much as he was at Chequers that night, it remains the case – as has always been the case – that a government is led from the top. Consequently, the character of the man or woman at its pinnacle slowly but surely informs other aspects of the government’s behaviour. It is a question of culture. And who can be surprised that a government led by a man famously impatient with rules, regulations and sundry other curbs on his own behaviour might in time be staffed by folk similarly impatient with such trivial things?
I know. Me neither. Yet here we are and here we shall remain until such time as some several dozen Tory MPs summon the courage – the decency, actually – to do something about it. The power to do so is in their hands and it is fair to judge them by their willingness to use it.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the kind of supercilious fool born with a silver spoon in his mouth who thinks he earned the spoon, prattles on that the real difficulty is that the rules were jolly hard to follow and, consequently, no-one could reasonably expect the Prime Minister to observe them. I look forward to this charity being extended to benefit claimants caught in official quicksand and to anyone tempted to file a modestly dishonest tax return this month. DWP and HMRC rules are frightfully complicated too. » | Alex Massie, Scotland Editor of The Spectator. | Friday, January 14, 2022
