Flawed Boris Johnson has made more than just mistakes - Jayne Dowle

When she’d finished blaming “the newspapers” for criticising the Prime Minister’s every move – I preferred the term “holding to account” but she was having none of it – she came out with her killer closing line. “Well, we’re all allowed to make mistakes from time to time, aren’t we?” she said. For once, even I was lost for words. I wanted to reply “mistakes? You call partying while people were dying alone with Covid in their hospital beds, then attempting to evade any responsibility, a ‘mistake’?”

And, I thought, the fixed penalty notice received by a serving Prime Minister as a result of breaking his own Government’s rules, that’s a mistake too?

And you call standing back while a cost of living crisis engulfs the nation, leaving thousands of people with a stark choice between heating or eating a “mistake”? But I didn’t say anything. I just smiled. Through gritted teeth. We were in polite company and I didn’t want to cause a scene. However, I got to thinking afterwards. What is it that convinces normally sane people that

Johnson is such a decent Prime Minister that he deserves forgiveness, and to keep his job?

Is it the lack of a credible alternative? When your only serious contender is former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who ended up leading the raggle taggle bunch of Tory rebels by default earlier this week, it does lend a certain sense of assuredness to your position, whatever you do wrong.

As those rebels proved, there is no over-riding philosophy that unites them all with a burning sense of purpose.

There are grandees who are sick of Johnson’s unconscionable and unscrupulous conduct, angry and baffled younger MPs from former ‘Red Wall’ seats who feel no loyalty or connection to their leader and apparently, some ambitious Cabinet colleagues who don’t want to risk anything – at this stage, I can’t imagine what – by showing their hand publicly.

And equally, the Opposition still seems congenitally incapable of mounting a strong attack when easy targets such as poverty, low wages and the abysmal waiting lists in the NHS are there for picking off.

Are people really so easily swayed that they will believe Johnson wholeheartedly when he says that from now on, he’s going to focus on the “things that matter”? To this I would add the rejoinder that he doesn’t understand what these things are, or have any clear idea of how to go about delivering them in actuality.

If he thinks that trumpeting a return to pounds and ounces is going to cut it with anyone except Jacob Rees-Mogg and some diehard market traders, he’s hugely mistaken.

He did know about populism once – or at least appeared to – when he put everything into delivering Brexit. That ship sailed years ago, but as we can see in our supermarket trolleys and on the petrol station forecourts, we’re counting the cost – in more ways than one.

There is a by-election looming in Wakefield on June 23, which many commentators think will drive the final nail into the Prime Minister’s coffin. It’s not just a straight fight between Conservative – the seat turned blue after 88 years at the 2019 General Election, and Labour.

There are issues to do with the previous Tory incumbent, who was found guilty of child sex offences, and a row over the Labour shortlist and local ties, so it’s more complex than many outsiders think.

However, even if Labour does romp home with a resounding majority, no-one should assume that this Prime Minister will fall on his sword. If he is still determined to carry on when 40 per cent of his Parliamentary party don’t want him, we should not assume that the loss of one seat in West Yorkshire will spook him. Oh yes. I almost forgot. His new thing is to rise above the fray and focus on “the things that matter”. He could tell some people that he was mounting a mission to Mars with Nadine Dorries as co-pilot next Tuesday and they would still nod fondly and smile.

Yet again, we critics and carpers should take nothing for granted. And neither should any Labour party activist who thinks Wakefield will be an easy ticket.

As Thomas Jefferson said, “the government you elect is the government you deserve”. I’m not just blaming that silly woman I was talking to at the weekend. I’m also laying it at the feet of those who sit beside him in the Cabinet room, behind him on the back benches and opposite in the House of Commons. If he won’t go of his own accord, pressure must be applied.