Boris has run out of road

It is becoming increasingly difficult to appreciate just how Boris Johnson might continue as Prime Minister, in the wake of yet another party scandal at Downing Street, and more saliently, yesterday’s first admission.

Of course, it is also difficult to imagine that the man himself will resign over what happened, despite confirming that he had attended a bring-your-own-booze event, while the rest of the country suffered under the strictest lockdown regulations.

For someone who, as a child, desired to be a king of the world, and for someone whose tenure in government has been punctuated with rule-breaking and lies, it is becoming clearer by the day that this man lives a life sadly bereft of principles. How could such a man resign, when he believes himself to be untouchable, and above the restrictions that he helped create? His ego and his megalomania wouldn’t allow it.

Yesterday Labour leader Keir Starmer suggested that the PM should “do the decent thing and resign” over his “pathetic” excuses and “ridiculous” lies. But the grim truth is: Boris Johnson is only now apologising for his actions because he was caught out.

During the first lockdown in 2020 when, as part of Covid restrictions, people were being ordered to only meet one other person in an outdoor setting, there were scores of ministers and officials – including the PM and his wife – partying in the back garden of Number Ten. How then, in the wake of this, can this so-called leader and his government deign to tell others what they should and shouldn’t be doing? Don’t do as we do, do as we say. Yesterday’s apology from Mr Johnson will ring hollow for anyone who obeyed the lockdown rules – and will be especially enraging for those who lost a loved one during the pandemic.

Surely now, when he has admitted his attendance at the gathering, he has to go. And surely if he won’t do the decent thing and jump, he has to be pushed.