Clever clown who turned Downing St into circus of shame

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Picture: Getty Images

Boris Johnson’s desperate clinging to power as his government collapsed around him is unprecedented in the 300-year history of the British prime ministership, and his failure to make way for an interim prime minister while a new Conservative party leader is chosen underscores his contempt for the standards expected of those in high office.

It was only when those in Johnson’s own government, including his closest colleagues and staunchest allies, made it clear by resigning en masse that his law-breaking and disdain for the norms and conventions of Westminster governance, probity and accountability were no longer tolerable, that he eventually resigned as party leader.

Johnson was a clever politician and consequential prime minister but also a buffoon whose clownish, embarrassing behaviour, lack of discipline and self-restraint, shambolic appearance and bumbling approach to policy led to a sharp erosion of public trust.

His illegality and leading a government marked by scandal and sleaze were his downfall.

He will be remembered, above all, for leading the campaign to withdraw the UK from the EU in 2016 and then delivering it as prime minister in 2020. He steered the UK through the Covid pandemic. He also led the Conservative party to a historic election victory and routed the British Labour Party led by the retrograde Jeremy Corbyn in 2019.

The problem for Johnson’s legacy is that Brexit has made the economy weaker, diminished the UK’s authority in Europe and damaged its standing around the world, while the British people remain deeply divided. Johnson was a polarising leader who exacerbated these divisions rather than healed them and his actions, including with regard to Northern Ireland, have been disastrous.

I was in London when the UK first went into lockdown due to Covid and saw first-hand how muddled and confused the response was. The lack of preparation, delayed action and nature of the response have since been found by the government’s own advisers to have had a catastrophic impact, with the UK registering among the highest death tolls in the world at the height of the pandemic.

The policy legacy of the three-year Johnson government will long be debated. But his lying and lack of accountability are not a matter of debate; they have been factually established. This is what caused his demise – not an ambitious leadership challenger or an election loss but his own integrity failures, which his colleagues could no longer accept.

Johnson’s advice to the Queen to prorogue parliament in 2019 was later found by the Supreme Court to be unlawful. His parties at No.10 in 2020-21 breached multiple public health regulations and saw him become the only serving prime minister to be fined by police for breaking the law. He also lied about it to parliament when he said the rules were being followed at all times.

There have been many other scandals pockmarking the Johnson prime ministership, including his controversial refurbishment of No.10, defending Conservative MP Owen Paterson, who moonlighted as a paid corporate lobbyist, and promoting Conservative MP Chris Pincher despite being aware of official complaints and investigations into allegations of his sexual misconduct.

I got an insight into Johnson when I interviewed him when he was mayor of London in 2014. His showman persona was then well established. He was seen as authentic with a larrikin intellectualism that stood him apart from other political leaders. He was charming and erudite but even this interview was, above all, a performance.

We were talking about his book, The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History (Hachette), which was not well received by critics. It is replete with passages that illuminated the author’s dreams. Johnson wrote that Winston Churchill was the premier example of how “one man can make all the difference” and change history.

He said Churchill was “a superb communicator” and a “policy wonk” who demonstrated “sheer moral courage” to fight on in May 1940 when Europe was lost to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Britain was imperilled. Johnson noted Churchill’s eccentricity, individualism and protean political identity as if talking about himself.

Johnson revealingly said he imagined he was Churchill. “I tried to put myself in his shoes,” he said. “I went to Chartwell loads of times, his beloved home in Kent, where I saw his studio, his desk. One time I actually went into the Cabinet War Rooms as – you’re not meant to do this – but I sat myself down without invitation in the chair he had sat in and tried to imagine what it was like, taking some of those decisions he did.”

My suggestion that he saw elements of Churchill deep within himself or imagined emulating the greatest of British prime ministers was met with feigned protest. “I have more in common with a one-eyed pterodactyl than Winston Churchill, or a three-toed sloth,” he joked. “Churchill is a one-off.” He was right about that.

My lasting impression was that of a man who was unfocused, conceited and somewhat shallow, though not stupid, but who had the capacity to be a successful prime minister if he could be disciplined and collegiate. He was perceived as an outsider with populist appeal who could reach across the political divide, which he did to some extent at the 2019 election.

But Johnson squandered these talents. Campaigning is not governing, and in that he proved to be incompetent and lacking integrity. Being in power revealed his true character. His downfall is as spectacular as his ascendancy.

In the end, his colleagues ended the circus. But even when it was over, the manner of his exit has shamed the office of prime minister.