Douglas Ross has become Boris Johnson’s human shield

If Boris Johnson has a superpower, it is the ability to make others pay the price for his wrongdoing. Today the whipping boy is Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross, though it must be said Ross walked clear-eyed into the path of the scourge. That’s another of the Prime Minister’s skills: he can convince people that it would be in everyone’s interest if they maximised their exposure to political risk so that he may minimise his. In the run-up to the Iraq War, a bunch of peace-mongering oddballs flew to Baghdad to offer themselves as human shields and Tories who volunteer to take flak for Boris give off much the same energy.

For reasons passing understanding, Douglas Ross agreed to go on Good Morning Scotland — think the Today programme without the insufferable smugness — and answer questions about the Prime Minister. Presenter Gary Robertson asked him: ‘Is the Prime Minister a truthful man?’ Ross ran through all the now-familiar talking points about ‘a thorough Met police investigation’, that the Prime Minister ‘has accepted that fixed penalty notice and he has paid the fine’, and that Ross ‘share[s] the anger and fury that people have about this’.