Boris Johnson is running out of options

The No. 10 operation’s decision to double down on the Starmer/Savile row after the Labour leader was accosted in the street by anti-vaxxers shows us how limited the options are for Boris Johnson as he tries to recover from the turmoil of the past few weeks.

The line from his allies and aides is that these protesters were shouting all manner of things, including about Savile but also about Julian Assange. In other words, they were wrong’uns before Johnson offered the slur in the Commons last week, and they would have threatened the Labour leader regardless.

This may or may not be true but as a line of argument it hardly gives Boris Johnson a statesmanlike demeanour. There wasn’t much else in the diatribe of allegations yelled at Starmer that you’d want to hear repeated by the leader of your country.

This line of defence essentially admits that the Savile line is the sort of thing that only conspiracy theorists who try to intimidate politicians in the street espouse.