Imagine an alternate reality – utterly plausible until only a few weeks ago – in which Boris Johnson resigned after the publication of the Sue Gray report.
He could have channelled perhaps the most famous political resignation of all time, Sir Geoffrey Howe, who quit the Thatcher administration over her policy towards Europe. “In doing so, I have done what I believe to be right for my party and my country,” he said at the conclusion of his quietly devastating being-savaged-by-a-dead-sheep resignation speech.
Or as he took the rap over Partygate, it could have been the Conservative Party itself he prioritised, as Lady Thatcher did when she quit in 1990, saying: “Having consulted widely among colleagues, I have concluded that the unity of the party and the prospects of victory in a general election would be better served if I stood down to enable cabinet colleagues to enter the ballot for the leadership.”
He could, like Robin Cook, who walked out as foreign secretary over Tony Blair’s Iraq War, have flattered the public, speaking of the respect he had “for the good sense and collective wisdom of the British people”.
Perhaps he could have claimed to be acting in the national interest, as both David Cameron and Theresa May did. The former spoke after the Brexit referendum of needing a “period of stability” at a time of crisis, and vowed to do “everything I can as prime minister to steady the ship over the coming weeks and months, but I do not think it would be right for me to try to be the captain that steers our country to its next destination”.
May, you may remember, was both emotional and humble. “I will shortly leave the job that it has been the honour of my life to hold. I do so with no ill-will, but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love,” she said, through tears.
But though Johnson’s position looked perilous in February – before Russia’s war in Ukraine – he hasn’t had to draft a fond farewell, and may not for a good while yet. Instead, he will stay in office for the foreseeable future, defending what many of his senior colleagues believe to be the indefensible.
Johnson’s strategy has evolved considerably over the past few months. In December 2021, he claimed “all guidance was followed completely in Number 10” before adding, just over a week later, that he had been “repeatedly assured since these allegations emerged that there was no party and that no Covid rules were broken”.
Then, when the wine and cheese pictures emerged, the line from Johnson was that these were “people at work, talking about work”.
In January, when allegations surfaced about a suitcase full of wine being carted to a party on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral, he apologised. Multiple apologies later, we had the final evolution of Johnson’s defence: his claim that while he took “full responsibility” for the behaviour of staff who vomited and sprayed red wine up the walls, it was his “duty” to show his face at lockdown parties to “say farewell to valued colleagues”.
To his critics, this is the ultimate insult. Many, including presenter Andrew Neil, have pointed out they themselves didn’t get lockdown leaving parties. Others have reminded the prime minister they didn’t have the opportunity to “say farewell” to valued loved ones, isolated in hospital beds.
And while Johnson’s resignation speech remains unwritten, his allies perform all sorts of semantic contortions to defend him. Few wanted to put their heads above the parapet and appear on television last night. They’ve seen how Bassetlaw MP Brendan Clarke-Smith was mocked when I asked him on Channel 4 News earlier this week if he was “content to back a lawbreaker in office”.
Without missing a beat, he responded: “I certainly am”, before appearing to query his own quote after the event on Twitter. Some Labour folk are promising to turn his words into an election leaflet.
This after Northern Ireland minister Conor Burns became a meme for explaining that Johnson had been “ambushed with a cake” at the birthday party that earned the prime minister his one and only fine – and his place in history as the only sitting PM to have broken the law. Privately some MPs complain their boss is turning them into a laughing stock.
Eventually, Johnson will pen that resignation speech. How soon depends partly on the extent to which today’s “special fiscal event” (an emergency budget in other words) mitigates the escalating cost of living crisis.
If he and Rishi Sunak get it right, Johnson might have at least until the next election to compose his words. Then, though, however comical his long-suffering MPs are content to sound, voters may be less willing to be taken for fools.
Cathy Newman is presenter and investigations editor of Channel 4 News
How does he have zero shame? I’d be so embarrassed to be caught lying so much yet he just clings on
To resign on principle don’t you kind of need to have, well, you know, principles?
Thatcher was booted, she didn’t resign 😂
Boris Johnson is a character, and the character is a buffoon. Clearly, we voted for a buffoon to lead us. And a buffoon, unlike a respectable politician, has no shame.
(The person is called Alexander de Pfeffel, and is probably a narcissist.)
> Multiple apologies later, we had the final evolution of Johnson’s defence: his claim that while he took “full responsibility” for the behaviour of staff who vomited and sprayed red wine up the walls, it was his “duty” to show his face at lockdown parties to “say farewell to valued colleagues”.
Quite. “I take full responsibility” used to be swiftly followed by resigning. Now it’s just plausible sounding words used to deflect and hide behind by him and his team of shiftless sycophants.
There is no way to sugar coat it any longer, it is corruption. Plain old simple, greedy, evil, corruption.
We always think of corrupt governance as something that happens elsewhere, in poor 3rd world countries.
But no. It happens elsewhere, like right now, in full view with zero f*cks to give, in the UK.
Top to bottom this shows just how completely corrupt and untrustworthy they all really are.
Even Boris’ dad decided to become French after the shitshow his son has presided over.
Neither Thatcher nor May resigned ‘on principle’, they were forced out. Cameron possibly, although it was more just that he realised his position was untenable, having argued so vociferously for remain.
What? You’re telling me the guy who is creating laws to jail protestors if they are deemed to be “annoying” doesn’t want to let go of power?? Fucking shocker there..
principle?!?!?
How comes Blair never then after his illegal war.
Hang on, Cameron did *not* resign on principle. He resigned out of cowardice.
The truly damning thing is how few Tory MPs are trying to get rid of him.
What we’re seeing is a party just as shameless and corrupt as Johnson.
He’s spent his entire life slithering his way up the ladder to become Prime Minister. He’s not going to give it up willingly. Either he’s voted out or he’s removed by the Conservatives. Otherwise he’ll cling on to it like a limpet to a rock.
To say May resigned on principle is a joke, she hung on for live over a year until the party kicked her. Give it 5 years and the independent will be hailing Boris as our savoiur who got us through Covid and keeping the nation together during tough lockdowns.
That’s because he has no principles
No politician ever resigns on principle, they only resign when they believe that they’ve lost support from their party. Boris still has Tory support, or so he believes.
Makes you think, when was the last time this country had a “good” prime minister..
Here’s the thing Boris might be a compulsive liar but relatively speaking he’s a fairly moderate Tory (not wanting to quote Starmer yes it’s a pretty low bar).
If Boris resigns he’s going to be replaced with a real ghoul, the centrists were all purged during the last election. There are some brutally ruthless people in the current Tory party that some would consider excessively pragmatic bordering on evil and we have 2 and half years left with this government.
get over it .. 🙂
Can’t resign on principle if you’ve got no principles
Taps Head
Boris Boris Boris …defiance in the face of shame is such and Orange Cheeto move. Your cousin across the pond would approve.
No seriously, straight outta Trumps playbook
Looking at his past, this is hardly surprising. He failed university, got a job anyway, got fired from all of his jobs, becomes prime minister. He doesn’t understand that he can fuck up, he got out of it anyway. There has to be some way to get this fucking cunt out of office. This can’t continue
Remind me what principle Cameron resigned on? Pandering to the right wing of his party, allowing a vote he allegedly opposed. Then fucking off when it came to the job of sorting out a deal.
*do-do-do, right!*
This is not how a democracy works. This is how a dictatorship starts. We’re miles off, maybe, that but the tories are showing all the signs with their laws & Boris not resigning.
Rumour has it there’s a superinjunction in place regarding Carrie. Hopefully some foreign media will print the whole story.
You know you’ve fucked up when Thatcher has more integrity than you do.
Because he is a decoy, we all rage at him while the rest of the government fucks with the laws that protect us.
Maybe not just because he’s a big dog but he’s a tough dog?
Okay don’t quote me on this, but here’s a story about Boris. I have a friend who knows someone who was senior management when he was fired from his first newspaper job for making up a source. They said when they went back and looked at all his old stories, they couldn’t verify any sources. He literally made everything up.
He then went on to get fired from another media outlet, then was caught lying as Mayor and caught lying to the Queen as pm. He’s a pathological liar.
>Cameron, May, Thatcher: Politicians always resigned on principle
…which one of those resigned on principle again..?
Cameron didnt resign on principle. He resigned because he gambled the country in order to win the split Right Wing voters (that would have voted UKIP) and win the election outright. As soon as he lost that gamble, he ran!
Is anyone surprised, the mayor who constantly put himself in the spotlight is trying to cling on to power now that it’s his time?
Back in the good old days (depending on who you are) lying to the monarch was settled by beheading.
And that’s all I’m going to say
Boris is going nowhere. He is the PM I voted for and he will win again in 2024. People just want to use this faux partygate BS to remove him without an election.
The prime minister has locked the country down then thrown parties, allowed government overreach, been openly racist, failed to provide adequate leadership through a pandemic, dithered and failed to act while thousands died alone and afraid, broken international law, provided no assurance during the uncertainty of Brexit, allowed our society to become more divided than ever and soooo much more.
And yet… the opposition and all its supporters still can’t offer anything of substance, can’t offer anything other than whinging and moaning and identity politics, so that _this_ man is still the better option.
He will win again in 2024. This country’s a one party state and it isn’t the tories fault.
Margaret thatcher had more principles than this man??
How can I be shocked yet not shocked at the same time
Man with no principles, refuses to to resign on principle.
In other news, grass is green and the sky is blue.
Resigning in shame first requires the ability to actually feel shame.
40 comments
Ad free version:
Imagine an alternate reality – utterly plausible until only a few weeks ago – in which Boris Johnson resigned after the publication of the Sue Gray report.
He could have channelled perhaps the most famous political resignation of all time, Sir Geoffrey Howe, who quit the Thatcher administration over her policy towards Europe. “In doing so, I have done what I believe to be right for my party and my country,” he said at the conclusion of his quietly devastating being-savaged-by-a-dead-sheep resignation speech.
Or as he took the rap over Partygate, it could have been the Conservative Party itself he prioritised, as Lady Thatcher did when she quit in 1990, saying: “Having consulted widely among colleagues, I have concluded that the unity of the party and the prospects of victory in a general election would be better served if I stood down to enable cabinet colleagues to enter the ballot for the leadership.”
He could, like Robin Cook, who walked out as foreign secretary over Tony Blair’s Iraq War, have flattered the public, speaking of the respect he had “for the good sense and collective wisdom of the British people”.
Perhaps he could have claimed to be acting in the national interest, as both David Cameron and Theresa May did. The former spoke after the Brexit referendum of needing a “period of stability” at a time of crisis, and vowed to do “everything I can as prime minister to steady the ship over the coming weeks and months, but I do not think it would be right for me to try to be the captain that steers our country to its next destination”.
May, you may remember, was both emotional and humble. “I will shortly leave the job that it has been the honour of my life to hold. I do so with no ill-will, but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love,” she said, through tears.
But though Johnson’s position looked perilous in February – before Russia’s war in Ukraine – he hasn’t had to draft a fond farewell, and may not for a good while yet. Instead, he will stay in office for the foreseeable future, defending what many of his senior colleagues believe to be the indefensible.
Johnson’s strategy has evolved considerably over the past few months. In December 2021, he claimed “all guidance was followed completely in Number 10” before adding, just over a week later, that he had been “repeatedly assured since these allegations emerged that there was no party and that no Covid rules were broken”.
Then, when the wine and cheese pictures emerged, the line from Johnson was that these were “people at work, talking about work”.
In January, when allegations surfaced about a suitcase full of wine being carted to a party on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral, he apologised. Multiple apologies later, we had the final evolution of Johnson’s defence: his claim that while he took “full responsibility” for the behaviour of staff who vomited and sprayed red wine up the walls, it was his “duty” to show his face at lockdown parties to “say farewell to valued colleagues”.
To his critics, this is the ultimate insult. Many, including presenter Andrew Neil, have pointed out they themselves didn’t get lockdown leaving parties. Others have reminded the prime minister they didn’t have the opportunity to “say farewell” to valued loved ones, isolated in hospital beds.
And while Johnson’s resignation speech remains unwritten, his allies perform all sorts of semantic contortions to defend him. Few wanted to put their heads above the parapet and appear on television last night. They’ve seen how Bassetlaw MP Brendan Clarke-Smith was mocked when I asked him on Channel 4 News earlier this week if he was “content to back a lawbreaker in office”.
Without missing a beat, he responded: “I certainly am”, before appearing to query his own quote after the event on Twitter. Some Labour folk are promising to turn his words into an election leaflet.
This after Northern Ireland minister Conor Burns became a meme for explaining that Johnson had been “ambushed with a cake” at the birthday party that earned the prime minister his one and only fine – and his place in history as the only sitting PM to have broken the law. Privately some MPs complain their boss is turning them into a laughing stock.
Eventually, Johnson will pen that resignation speech. How soon depends partly on the extent to which today’s “special fiscal event” (an emergency budget in other words) mitigates the escalating cost of living crisis.
If he and Rishi Sunak get it right, Johnson might have at least until the next election to compose his words. Then, though, however comical his long-suffering MPs are content to sound, voters may be less willing to be taken for fools.
Cathy Newman is presenter and investigations editor of Channel 4 News
How does he have zero shame? I’d be so embarrassed to be caught lying so much yet he just clings on
To resign on principle don’t you kind of need to have, well, you know, principles?
Thatcher was booted, she didn’t resign 😂
Boris Johnson is a character, and the character is a buffoon. Clearly, we voted for a buffoon to lead us. And a buffoon, unlike a respectable politician, has no shame.
(The person is called Alexander de Pfeffel, and is probably a narcissist.)
> Multiple apologies later, we had the final evolution of Johnson’s defence: his claim that while he took “full responsibility” for the behaviour of staff who vomited and sprayed red wine up the walls, it was his “duty” to show his face at lockdown parties to “say farewell to valued colleagues”.
Quite. “I take full responsibility” used to be swiftly followed by resigning. Now it’s just plausible sounding words used to deflect and hide behind by him and his team of shiftless sycophants.
There is no way to sugar coat it any longer, it is corruption. Plain old simple, greedy, evil, corruption.
We always think of corrupt governance as something that happens elsewhere, in poor 3rd world countries.
But no. It happens elsewhere, like right now, in full view with zero f*cks to give, in the UK.
Top to bottom this shows just how completely corrupt and untrustworthy they all really are.
Even Boris’ dad decided to become French after the shitshow his son has presided over.
Neither Thatcher nor May resigned ‘on principle’, they were forced out. Cameron possibly, although it was more just that he realised his position was untenable, having argued so vociferously for remain.
What? You’re telling me the guy who is creating laws to jail protestors if they are deemed to be “annoying” doesn’t want to let go of power?? Fucking shocker there..
principle?!?!?
How comes Blair never then after his illegal war.
Hang on, Cameron did *not* resign on principle. He resigned out of cowardice.
The truly damning thing is how few Tory MPs are trying to get rid of him.
What we’re seeing is a party just as shameless and corrupt as Johnson.
He’s spent his entire life slithering his way up the ladder to become Prime Minister. He’s not going to give it up willingly. Either he’s voted out or he’s removed by the Conservatives. Otherwise he’ll cling on to it like a limpet to a rock.
To say May resigned on principle is a joke, she hung on for live over a year until the party kicked her. Give it 5 years and the independent will be hailing Boris as our savoiur who got us through Covid and keeping the nation together during tough lockdowns.
That’s because he has no principles
No politician ever resigns on principle, they only resign when they believe that they’ve lost support from their party. Boris still has Tory support, or so he believes.
Makes you think, when was the last time this country had a “good” prime minister..
Here’s the thing Boris might be a compulsive liar but relatively speaking he’s a fairly moderate Tory (not wanting to quote Starmer yes it’s a pretty low bar).
If Boris resigns he’s going to be replaced with a real ghoul, the centrists were all purged during the last election. There are some brutally ruthless people in the current Tory party that some would consider excessively pragmatic bordering on evil and we have 2 and half years left with this government.
get over it .. 🙂
Can’t resign on principle if you’ve got no principles
Taps Head
Boris Boris Boris …defiance in the face of shame is such and Orange Cheeto move. Your cousin across the pond would approve.
No seriously, straight outta Trumps playbook
Looking at his past, this is hardly surprising. He failed university, got a job anyway, got fired from all of his jobs, becomes prime minister. He doesn’t understand that he can fuck up, he got out of it anyway. There has to be some way to get this fucking cunt out of office. This can’t continue
Remind me what principle Cameron resigned on? Pandering to the right wing of his party, allowing a vote he allegedly opposed. Then fucking off when it came to the job of sorting out a deal.
*do-do-do, right!*
This is not how a democracy works. This is how a dictatorship starts. We’re miles off, maybe, that but the tories are showing all the signs with their laws & Boris not resigning.
Rumour has it there’s a superinjunction in place regarding Carrie. Hopefully some foreign media will print the whole story.
You know you’ve fucked up when Thatcher has more integrity than you do.
Because he is a decoy, we all rage at him while the rest of the government fucks with the laws that protect us.
Maybe not just because he’s a big dog but he’s a tough dog?
Okay don’t quote me on this, but here’s a story about Boris. I have a friend who knows someone who was senior management when he was fired from his first newspaper job for making up a source. They said when they went back and looked at all his old stories, they couldn’t verify any sources. He literally made everything up.
He then went on to get fired from another media outlet, then was caught lying as Mayor and caught lying to the Queen as pm. He’s a pathological liar.
>Cameron, May, Thatcher: Politicians always resigned on principle
…which one of those resigned on principle again..?
Cameron didnt resign on principle. He resigned because he gambled the country in order to win the split Right Wing voters (that would have voted UKIP) and win the election outright. As soon as he lost that gamble, he ran!
Is anyone surprised, the mayor who constantly put himself in the spotlight is trying to cling on to power now that it’s his time?
Back in the good old days (depending on who you are) lying to the monarch was settled by beheading.
And that’s all I’m going to say
Boris is going nowhere. He is the PM I voted for and he will win again in 2024. People just want to use this faux partygate BS to remove him without an election.
The prime minister has locked the country down then thrown parties, allowed government overreach, been openly racist, failed to provide adequate leadership through a pandemic, dithered and failed to act while thousands died alone and afraid, broken international law, provided no assurance during the uncertainty of Brexit, allowed our society to become more divided than ever and soooo much more.
And yet… the opposition and all its supporters still can’t offer anything of substance, can’t offer anything other than whinging and moaning and identity politics, so that _this_ man is still the better option.
He will win again in 2024. This country’s a one party state and it isn’t the tories fault.
Margaret thatcher had more principles than this man??
How can I be shocked yet not shocked at the same time
Man with no principles, refuses to to resign on principle.
In other news, grass is green and the sky is blue.
Resigning in shame first requires the ability to actually feel shame.