The return of Tory sleaze should trouble Boris

For those of us who were reporting on politics way back in the 1990s, ‘Tory sleaze’ is a phrase that echoes down the ages. Though there had been plenty of run-of-the-mill scandals involving Tory MPs in the first couple of years of John Major’s premiership, things really took off after his ‘back to basics’ conference speech of October 1993.

‘It is time to return to core values, time to get back to basics, to self-discipline and respect for the law, to consideration for others, to accepting responsibility for yourself and your family,’ Major said. Within days the tabloid press was making merry, highlighting cases of Conservative parliamentarians apparently taking more of an interest in other people’s families than in their own.

Initially it was broad-shouldered bon-viveurs such as Steve Norris and Tim Yeo who took the brunt, but then events took a much darker turn with the suicide of the wife of the Earl of Caithness and the death by auto-erotic asphyxiation of Stephen Milligan.

Major, whose own infidelity remained secret until after he left Downing Street, had not meant to put the private lives of his ministers and MPs in the firing line but that was the effect of his high moral tone.