How Boris Johnson can save himself from Tory sleaze – Bernard Ingham

Or is it saddled with a Prime Minister who is incorrigibly cavalier with a heroic view of what he can get away with?

Do not despair. I can cite three reasons why all is not yet lost:

1. Last week’s Tory revolt over Boris’s attempt to protect the now resigned Owen Paterson from suspension from the House on paid lobbying charges which brought a screeching U-turn. The party has not entirely mislaid its moral compass.

2. Both the PM and Mr Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, are speaking with one voice on the need to get the rules governing lobbying and their enforcement right.

3. Mr Speaker, in favour of a cross-party approach, is resting for now on a review of the system by the Commons Standards Committee.

Boris Johnson’s cowardice over sleaze insults voters – The Yorkshire Post says

It is to be hoped that they will soon come up with tightening the rules, review the investigatory process, with right of appeal, and argue out the issue whether MPs should judge their own or vest decisions in an independent authority.

How Tory sleaze will destroy Boris Johnson’s premiership – Andrew Vine

Meanwhile, I fear we cannot yet – if ever – look to the current Opposition to rein in the PM and his wayward administration.

In the end, whatever new rules and processes are introduced, reform will have to come from both the PM and MPs – and especially Tory MPs for the foreseeable future.

You might reasonably have thought that after the MPs’ expenses scandal 10 years ago, they would be on their best, careful behaviour.

Instead, “sleaze” has become almost synonymous with politicians.

Why, Boris himself is still mired in “wallpapergate” – a row over the financing of a lavish refurbishment of his Downing Street quarters; a holiday in the sun; and now the elevation of Tory donors to the Lords.

When will it end?

I recognise that politicians have long been policed by the media for inconsistency, hypocrisy and “sleaze”.

Even Denis Thatcher, the PM’s husband, was unable to write a business letter from No 10 without a furore, even though that was his full-time address.

This close scrutiny has now been complemented by endless abuse from the Twitterati and sadly the killings of two MPs – Jo Cox and Sir David Amess.

I am driven to believe that they can 
do no right in some eyes and that 
politics has become not just Owen Paterson’s “cruel game” but a dangerous calling.

All the more reason, you might argue, for them to demonstrate at least to reasonable people that they have mended their ways.

Let’s also hope that for once the ebullient Boris is a chastened man.

He cannot rely on his vaccination success to excuse many more misjudgments like Dominic Cummings, his former chief adviser; ex-Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, both of whom abused Covid restrictions, and now Paterson.

If he is to survive, he will have to recognise pretty smartly that what it looks like to the public matters.

And he will have to imbue the entire Government machine with that recognition since COP26 has been no advert for British competence.

I know someone who queued 85 and 55 minutes to get into the conference and even 30 minutes when he went there early on the third day.

This is not to mention the inability of an Israeli Minister to find wheelchair access.

In short, the UK Government, and not just the SNP variety in Scotland, is not a pretty sight.

What else is to be done to improve matters? The time has long gone when Boris might do it by a call to arms. Deeds in No 10 are now required.

In the absence of a Willie Whitelaw figure, he should set up apparatus to anticipate problems and kill them on the spot, assuming he is prepared to listen and act on their advice.

He should bring together in daily conclave – 9am sharp with a comprehensive diary of events and announcements – the following to galvanise the entire machine: leaders of both Houses of Parliament with Chief Whips, the Cabinet Secretary, the PM’s Principal Private Secretary, the PM’s chief press secretary and the chairmen of the Tory Party and its backbench 1922 Committee.

If that lot, with Boris’s endorsement in word and deed, cannot pull the system’s socks up by Christmas, the Government will be in real trouble.

They should always ask two questions: Is it right? And will the people wear 
it?

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