Politics: Johnson the liar

By Richard North - April 28, 2021

In less febrile times, yesterday’s debate on the ratification of the TCA by the European Parliament might have got more publicity in the English legacy media than it actually did.

But then, although the vote is expected in favour of the deal, the result isn’t to be announced until today. Thus, it maybe that we get more coverage today, and possible some retrospective analysis. Certainly, I’m minded to do a piece for the weekend, covering some of the issues raised in the debate.

In the meantime, though, we still have Cummings-gate to deal with, although this seems to have morphed specifically into flat-gate (or donor-gate?) following Labour’s decision to feature this aspect of the soap opera. Perhaps they calculate that this is where Johnson is weakest.

Certainly, the Party’s efforts have been handsomely rewarded by the BBC. It gave shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth lead slot on the evening news with a clip from breakfast television of him complaining about the failure of Johnson to come clean about how the refurbishment costs for the flat in 11 Downing Street were met.

As there are strong suspicions that part of the costs were met by a hitherto undisclosed loan, Ashworth was permitted to say, direct to camera, “We really need to know who’s given the loan, who’s given the money, because we need to know who the prime minister…is beholden to”.

And then, in what actually made television history in a small way, Ashworth declared: “To be honest he [Johnson] lied yesterday – that’s not good enough”. A small piece of history it may be, but it is also significant. This is the first time, to my memory, that a senior opposition politician has been allowed, on air, to accuse a serving prime minister of lying.

The detail, as is the way of such things, is extremely tedious. But the Guardian helpfully explains that the refurbishment was initially paid for by a donation from Tory peer and donor Lord Brownlow to Conservative campaign headquarters (CCHQ), which then loaned the money to Johnson.

No 10 has insisted that “Conservative party funds are not being used to pay for the Downing Street flat” but have not denied the existence of a donation or loan arrangement. Like many things in politics, therefore, the damage comes not from the act itself but from the attempt to cover it up.

This attempt has brought Marina Hyde out to play, at her very best. In coruscating style, she writes:

I’m afraid that whatever the weird loans/donations/retrofitted hokey cokey that led to the PM spaffing up to £200,000 on his flat, one thing is crystal clear. Boris and Carrie’s lavish redecoration scheme was undertaken by two people apparently refusing to accept the most basic rule of home economics that the rest of the country has to work under. Namely: if you can’t pay for something, then you can’t have it.

She also resurrects Johnson’s 1998 column in the Telegraph (recorded elsewhere when he exulted in the resignation of Peter Mandelson over an undisclosed loan, writing: “In the Ministry of Sound, the tank-topped bum boys blub into their Pils … for Mandy is dead, dead ere his prime!”

What is good for the Mandy goose, one might suggest, is good for the Boris gander. Or, as Marina Hyde puts it: “Can’t believe the guy who wrote that turned out to be a shit. Honestly, what were the chances?”

Nevertheless, as Hyde observes, one of the worst aspects of British political life is that no piece of alleged wrongdoing is permitted to emerge without a load of the in-crowd rushing to the airwaves to explain loftily how the out-crowd don’t understand or care about it.

In not so many words, she writes, these know-alls suggest the public are too thick or busy surviving for whatever it is to “cut through”, observing that: “The Conservatives are doing rather a lot of this at the moment”.

Party surrogates, such as the Sun are indeed rising to the challenge, although not without displaying an amount of nervousness, under the heading: “Boris Johnson must end this saga and come clean about his flat refurbishment”.

The longer the saga goes on, it declares, the more absurd it gets. Johnson, it thus opines, “He should come clean, detail exactly how much he was reportedly lent by the Tory Party and the terms. The more he shifts from foot to foot, the more ammunition he hands his enemies”.

Putting the saga into what it thinks is the “right” perspective, it notes that Labour believe they have exposed the new Watergate. “In their frenzied desperation to topple the Brexit-backing Tory PM”, it says, “they and the Boris-hating media have confected vast outrage over some pricey rolls of wallpaper in Downing Street”.

Continuing on its theme, the paper accuses Labour of treating every word from Dominic Cummings, whom they considered a liar until last week, as holy writ. “We doubt most voters could care less”, it adds, concluding: “They would rather have a flawed PM who delivers than a morally unimpeachable dud. We tried that”.

Such stridency in defence of Johnson makes for an interesting contrast with the Mail which now styles itself as “the paper leading the pack”. Today, it offers a definitive account “of THAT scandal”, having Johnson wail, “It’s costing tens and tens of thousands… I cannot afford it”.

“The cost is totally out of control – she’s buying gold wallpaper!” he is said to have raged to aides, having to take time out from crisis meetings on the pandemic to deal the issue his advisers called “Wallpaper-gate”.

But whether the Sun likes it or not, what emerges from the account is that Brownlow did make a £58,000 “donation” to Tory HQ, making it clear it was to cover the same sum paid by the party to the Cabinet Office, which had paid the refurbishment bill but was expecting repayment of the excess.

Perversely, though, what might come to the rescue of the beleaguered prime minister is the very fact that Labour is taking such a keen interest in the issue. By so doing, it has made it tribal, prompting Conservative supporters – despite any reservations they might have – to close ranks.

Yet, there are some inescapable truths about the prime minister’s conduct. He has spent as much on the decoration of his flat as it would cost to buy a modest two-bedroomed terraced house in Bradford, and is expecting someone else – anyone else – to pay the bill.

With the Metro asking whether Boris can “wallpaper over the cracks”, though, the Telegraph devotes the larger part of its front page to James Dyson charging that the: “BBC twisted truth over my links to the Tories”.

There is always the possibility that this misdirection will work, taking the pressure off the prime minister as people get totally bored by the whole affair. With a picture in the Star of a long-nose Johnson, Pinocchio-style, declaring “Bozo’s a liar”, the very least of the outcomes is that the prime minister will reinforce his already formidable reputation for mendacity.

The left-leaning Mirror puts it wickedly succinctly on its front page with the headline: “Cash for curtains”, proclaiming that Johnson is “mired in scandal”, reporting Labour as saying he is “spending more time covering up” the furore than dealing with Covid.

In a two-day exposé on the Tory sleaze files, it goes out of its way to tell readers “why it matters”. And if, despite the attempts to play down this the machinations of the prime minister, too many people start to believe it does matter, Johnson is toast.

Whether or not that it his fate, he will always be a liar.