Prime Minister Boris Johnson's serious flaw has been laid bare - Bernard Ingham

He’s a bit of a lad and just the sort of PM who would land himself in “partygate”.

But in spite of it all – and being an old Etonian toff and egghead to boot – he has a certain charisma.

Perhaps we all identify with him in some way or other.

All, that is, apart from the Parliamentary Tory Party which has, of course, always been sent to try its Prime Ministers.

This conglomerate of politicians with but a tenuous hold on Conservative philosophy spends most of its time wounding Boris Johnson but apparently afraid to kill him off.

When will Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the Tory 1922 Committee, get the required 54 letters expressing no confidence in their leader and trigger a political crisis?

This week sometime or never?

A Prime Minister wrestling with the EU, an economy ravaged by the Covid pandemic and left to provide Western leadership against Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of the Ukraine deserves better support.

It is really worrying that there is such a diverse set of reasons for not liking him. The Remainers are incorrigible.

Who in their right mind would want to be a member of the failing EU which has been so palsied in its response to the Ukraine invasion and has always been pretty useless in an international crisis?

Mr Johnson has proven beyond doubt in the Ukraine crisis that he is a better European than most and recognises a threat to our freedom when he sees it.

Others simply don’t like him or trust him while another tranche thinks he is not doing enough to tackle the cost-of-living crisis which, incidentally, he did not cause.

Yet more applauded Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s £21bn increased spending last week even though we have a £300bn budget deficit and are borrowing like mad to keep the nation afloat.

In my 24 years in the Civil Service I had cause to note the ideological insecurity of politicians – especially when they think they are going to lose their seats at the next election – but this Tory lot take the biscuit.

I happen to believe that, looking at the current House of Commons, Boris Johnson is probably the only MP fit to be in No 10 at this time.

There may be others in the making but they are certainly not to be found in Labour or Liberal Democrat ranks.

But he does come with a serious flaw which was laid bare by last week’s announcement.

That is his approach to money.

Some marriages, they say, are made in heaven but last week’s financial policy most certainly was not.

And if it was made in the Treasury then things are far worse than I thought.

Conservatives who pretend to financial prudence should know, above all, that there is a limit as to how long we can go living on tick.

Yet we have been doing so since long before Boris Johnson got anywhere near No 10 as a result of the 2008-09 crash.

As a consequence the national debt has been soaring for several years and next year is expected to reach £2.4 trillion (thousand billion).

It can’t go on.

Yet the latest Budget has cost a minimum of £16bn, even if the windfall taxes on oil and gas produce the expected £5bn. This figure is dwarfed by the £80bn or so a year in servicing

of the debt – roughly twice as much as we spend on our depleted defences.

That is just dead money. Against this background, I would have some sympathy with a Parliamentary Tory Party that was calling its Prime Minister to order on public spending.

Only a few have publicly criticised the political “red meat” he is throwing at a Labour Party that believes the rich’s brass can solve everything.

It is now time for Mr Johnson to forget about buying love with the electorate’s own money and earn our respect for doing what is necessary.

By the same token it is time the Tory Party had a serious debate with him about where ever-increasing spending is leading us.

Come the next election the Government has to show progress in rebalancing the economy.

Otherwise, it could be defeated – always assuming that the people are daft enough to swap one big spender for an even more profligate type.