The startled welp that went up when with the Big Dog walked in fooled absolutely no one. Wherever Boris Johnson goes these days, he finds panicked people engaged in very ostentatious conversation about a nearby inanimate object they appear to have just laid their eyes on.
His life is a cliched sitcom in which everyone he meets has just changed the subject, and nowhere more so than in the House of Commons. “Have you done your letter? I’ve done my letter. Not gonna wait for the police but it’s only a matter of ti… WWWWWRREEEEEEEEYYYYYYYY!”
The noontime braying was loud but it didn’t mask the truth, and nor did the half hour that followed. There are, just about, enough Tory MPs who aren’t too stupid to understand the precise question that’s in front of them in these seemingly neverending hours of utter shame. And it’s this: Is it worth it? Or more accurately: Is he worth it?
Is he worth the humiliation? What are we getting out of it exactly? For a while, it was a Tory article of faith that Boris is invaluable just for being Boris. That the pantomime clown act just wins them elections that they otherwise can’t. It’s not entirely untrue but it’s not as true as they think it is either.
They love to point out that he won Labour-loving London twice, which he did, but on both occasions he beat Ken Livingstone, who’d already done two full terms and had come to look a tiny bit rough around the edges.
They obviously love to mention the EU referendum, which…
