Unveiling the Shocking Finale: Boris Johnson’s Farce Comes to an Explosive End! You won’t believe what happens next!

A rogue prime minister was found guilty of lying to parliament by a committee made up of a majority of his own party. England hasn’t seen anything like it in the 300 years since the role was created. This is our Watergate: and attempts to trivialize it demonstrate what was wrong with the Johnson regime.

When rumors of parties in Downing Street began to circulate, several people I had worked with there telephoned to express amazement. “Who takes pictures at work?” one asked. We’d already heard of Johnson’s nonchalant attitude toward the government: that he rarely finished his red boxes and left top-secret documents lying around. But number 10 as an alcohol-fueled binge, with staff carrying suitcases of booze to avoid the police? It looked like the court of a king whose lockdown rules condemned people to die alone.

If that sounds right – and it does to many of Johnson’s allies – it’s because of the Boris effect. His long resignation letter was an outpouring of teenage self-pity. His henchmen are now attacking Sir Bernard Jenkin, one of the Conservatives on the committee who unanimously agreed he should be suspended for more than 10 days, the threshold for a by-election. Jenkin was a Brexiter long before Boris: this was no Remainer ‘witch hunt’, but parliament stood firm against wrongdoing.

The establishment does not like Brexiters like Jenkin, or freethinkers like Sir Charles Walker, a Tory backbencher who argued passionately during the pandemic about the damage the lockdowns were doing to mental health. These independent minded people are not clubbable and often prickly. But our democracy needs it. Acting as a court of parliament, they performed their public duty.

One of the more troubling statements in the commission’s report is its assertion that there has been “a sustained, seemingly coordinated attempt” to undermine its credibility. Its Labor chair Harriet Harman, the veteran MP, has been accused for months of being tribal. But the censure of a former prime minister goes beyond party politics and goes to the very heart of our democracy. By battling Johnson’s attempts to challenge him and imposing a 90-day suspension on him, MPs are seeking to strengthen the hand of parliament against future lawbreakers.

This past week brought something into focus that took me a long time to realize. Johnson isn’t just a blatant renegade, a narcissist who didn’t bother to actually do the job he wanted his whole life to do. He can also act like a thug. Last year, I was struck by the nervousness of some Conservative MPs about being part of the committee that was supposed to investigate him. He didn’t have to be a genius to think that he had lied and that his defense of him – that no one could read his mind so he could not prove that he had knowingly misled parliament – was weak. It wasn’t just the embarrassment of censuring a former leader; they feared for their careers.

Johnson has outshone nearly everyone in his orbit: Allegra Stratton, filmed coyly thinking about how to cover up parties; Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary who has been completely compromised; the self-made Lord David Brownlow, embroiled in an argument over Johnson’s wallpaper; and ministers who regularly swarmed into broadcasting studios to defend the indefensible, only to find their boss had them dry-walled.

The mask slipped. Resigning rather than staying to fight a by-election, Johnson appears to have little confidence in his claimed ability to win votes. By attacking Rishi Sunak instead of apologizing for his own failures, he seeks revenge on a man who is showing him up by offering him competent government. By trying to destabilize his own party, he won’t earn any thanks from Conservative MPs who fear losing their seats in the next election.

It would never go quiet. I hear he is now considering standing as an independent in next year’s London mayoral election. The tragedy is that he was pretty good at that job — and some of those on his list of accolades are people who worked for him then. He has never been able to reach the heights required of a prime minister.

But this time he misread the room. She speaks to those who have been prevented from holding the hand of a dying relative during Covid, or whose children have been scarred by the cancellation of exams and the closure of schools. We followed rules that he and his acolytes did not respect. They made fun of us.

Failing to offer a shred of apology, failing to capture public anger, suggests Johnson has lost his political touch. Those who still claim it was just a small birthday cake should read the testimony of a number 10 official in the appendix to the report. This describes how the “Wine Time Friday” rallies (started at 4pm – a great value for the taxpayer) have run during the pandemic. Staff were told to pay attention to the cameras outside when they left the building.

Conservative MPs are partly to blame. They never liked Johnson but backed him up to beat Jeremy Corbyn, who in retrospect wasn’t that hard to beat. Amber Rudd, who resigned from Johnson’s cabinet, once said that he “wasn’t he the man you’d want to walk you home at the end of the night”. But few realized how carelessly he would swerve and how far off the road.

Rumors that Johnson is a martyr are strong, but they are few. The circus may go on for a while yet, but we’ve seen through the act.

camilla.cavendish@ft.com

A rogue prime minister was found guilty of lying to parliament by a committee made up of a majority of his own party. England hasn’t seen anything like it in the 300 years since the role was created. This is our Watergate: and attempts to trivialize it demonstrate what was wrong with the Johnson regime.

When rumors of parties in Downing Street began to circulate, several people I had worked with there telephoned to express amazement. “Who takes pictures at work?” one asked. We’d already heard of Johnson’s nonchalant attitude toward the government: that he rarely finished his red boxes and left top-secret documents lying around. But number 10 as an alcohol-fueled binge, with staff carrying suitcases of booze to avoid the police? It looked like the court of a king whose lockdown rules condemned people to die alone.

If that sounds right – and it does to many of Johnson’s allies – it’s because of the Boris effect. His long resignation letter was an outpouring of teenage self-pity. His henchmen are now attacking Sir Bernard Jenkin, one of the Conservatives on the committee who unanimously agreed he should be suspended for more than 10 days, the threshold for a by-election. Jenkin was a Brexiter long before Boris: this was no Remainer ‘witch hunt’, but parliament stood firm against wrongdoing.

The establishment does not like Brexiters like Jenkin, or freethinkers like Sir Charles Walker, a Tory backbencher who argued passionately during the pandemic about the damage the lockdowns were doing to mental health. These independent minded people are not clubbable and often prickly. But our democracy needs it. Acting as a court of parliament, they performed their public duty.

One of the more troubling statements in the commission’s report is its assertion that there has been “a sustained, seemingly coordinated attempt” to undermine its credibility. Its Labor chair Harriet Harman, the veteran MP, has been accused for months of being tribal. But the censure of a former prime minister goes beyond party politics and goes to the very heart of our democracy. By battling Johnson’s attempts to challenge him and imposing a 90-day suspension on him, MPs are seeking to strengthen the hand of parliament against future lawbreakers.

This past week brought something into focus that took me a long time to realize. Johnson isn’t just a blatant renegade, a narcissist who didn’t bother to actually do the job he wanted his whole life to do. He can also act like a thug. Last year, I was struck by the nervousness of some Conservative MPs about being part of the committee that was supposed to investigate him. He didn’t have to be a genius to think that he had lied and that his defense of him – that no one could read his mind so he could not prove that he had knowingly misled parliament – was weak. It wasn’t just the embarrassment of censuring a former leader; they feared for their careers.

Johnson has outshone nearly everyone in his orbit: Allegra Stratton, filmed coyly thinking about how to cover up parties; Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary who has been completely compromised; the self-made Lord David Brownlow, embroiled in an argument over Johnson’s wallpaper; and ministers who regularly swarmed into broadcasting studios to defend the indefensible, only to find their boss had them dry-walled.

The mask slipped. Resigning rather than staying to fight a by-election, Johnson appears to have little confidence in his claimed ability to win votes. By attacking Rishi Sunak instead of apologizing for his own failures, he seeks revenge on a man who is showing him up by offering him competent government. By trying to destabilize his own party, he won’t earn any thanks from Conservative MPs who fear losing their seats in the next election.

It would never go quiet. I hear he is now considering standing as an independent in next year’s London mayoral election. The tragedy is that he was pretty good at that job — and some of those on his list of accolades are people who worked for him then. He has never been able to reach the heights required of a prime minister.

But this time he misread the room. She speaks to those who have been prevented from holding the hand of a dying relative during Covid, or whose children have been scarred by the cancellation of exams and the closure of schools. We followed rules that he and his acolytes did not respect. They made fun of us.

Failing to offer a shred of apology, failing to capture public anger, suggests Johnson has lost his political touch. Those who still claim it was just a small birthday cake should read the testimony of a number 10 official in the appendix to the report. This describes how the “Wine Time Friday” rallies (started at 4pm – a great value for the taxpayer) have run during the pandemic. Staff were told to pay attention to the cameras outside when they left the building.

Conservative MPs are partly to blame. They never liked Johnson but backed him up to beat Jeremy Corbyn, who in retrospect wasn’t that hard to beat. Amber Rudd, who resigned from Johnson’s cabinet, once said that he “wasn’t he the man you’d want to walk you home at the end of the night”. But few realized how carelessly he would swerve and how far off the road.

Rumors that Johnson is a martyr are strong, but they are few. The circus may go on for a while yet, but we’ve seen through the act.

camilla.cavendish@ft.com