It’s time for Boris Johnson to go

The partygate farce drags on. Do we have a government, sustained by a dominant political party or do we have an ill-run children’s playground? The PM has suffered a humiliating loss of authority, which is surely irreversible. He is no longer the First Lord of the Treasury. He has become the first laughing-stock of state.

In one respect, Boris Johnson was always an improbable Prime Minister. From Attlee onwards, all post-war premiers could have claimed to be serious people. History might question whether that was really true of Harold Wilson or Tony Blair but at various stages they both dominated British politics. At least for a season, to use a phrase of Joe Chamberlain’s, they made the weather.

That was never true of Boris, for one overriding reason. He never seemed to take himself seriously. Indeed, he often seemed surprised that so many people bought his act. This is a very hard man to read, for there is a constant disjunction between the bumbling, goofish exterior and the inner man, a much more complex, ruthless and insecure character.