Opinion: If you thought Boris Johnson was bad, what’s to come will be even worse
This is about the Conservatives as well as Boris Johnson. Never forget either that we would not now be getting a new prime minister and a “new” government if Johnson hadn’t fouled up the comms over the Chris Pincher affair. A week ago, after he won the confidence vote, there was little serious effort going on to secure his imminent departure and every expectation that Johnson would wriggle and trick his way to the party conference and beyond. All those 50-plus ministers would never have resigned, never have wrestled with their consciences, never sent pompous letters about “integrity” if Johnson had published a factsheet and timeline about his dealings with Pincher soon after The Sun broke the story, a routine bit of Tory sleaze. They backed Johnson through the Dominic Cummings scandal, through the resignations of two ethics advisers, through the scandal of a party donor paying for the decoration of his flat, through the mishandling of the pandemic and the mismanaging of Brexit with a