A machine for making last straws
“He’s really done it this time,” cry the hacks before their memories reset.
Previously: ‘Boris’ doesn’t exist.
“Boris Johnson is the first sitting Prime Minister to break the law.” It’s a line that many senior political hacks tweeted when the news broke that he will receive a fixed penalty notice for flouting legislation his government introduced. Words should be important for journalists but they’re often thrown around with little thought. Boris Johnson is the first sitting Prime Minister to get caught. He’s the first sitting Prime Minister who could — but won’t — be done in by an Al Capone Fiddling His Taxes detail.
The fixed penalty notices for Johnson, his wife Carrie, and the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, provide the latest opportunity for the UK’s political press pack to deliver ersatz Aaron Sorkin monologues about the dignity of democracy and the way things “should be” before they slink back to pumping out squalid little stories from “sources”. We have seen the same cycle repeated over and over again during the Johnson premiership: “This is the final straw,” they cry and then the Tories drop a fresh tonne of bales in Downing Street and the farm yard goes on.
No matter how many previous Tory party election ads about being “tough on crime” are reposted, no matter how often Boris Johnson’s previous comments on ‘partygate’ are quoted (he was “furious” about the Stratton footage, remember?) he won’t suddenly develop shame. Already MPs who had called for his resignation a few weeks ago are now using the “we can’t swap leaders in the middle of a war” line to avoid repeating those demands. And many of the same hacks who are delivering ‘shocked’ monologues today were swooning over the Prime Minister’s Kyiv photo-op with Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the weekend.
Boris Johnson’s cockroach career should have ended countless times before now. ‘Norms’ and conventions only work if you are dealing with someone who recognises that they apply to them. The Boris Johnson who refused to learn his lines for the school play and busked it, getting applause for himself while ruining it for everyone else, is the same Boris Johnson who broke his own Covid legislation. History has taught him that rules are for everyone else and the British media has enabled him in that time and time again. “This is the final straw” ceased to have meaning long ago.
Johnson is not going to resign. And all the hacks making “this is unprecedented,” speeches will have moved on to something else by the middle of next week. The culture of the British media is fuelled by drama but can only binge on it. The anger is lukewarm and the moral ‘fury’ is the stuff of weak Facebook memes.
Yes, Johnson, his wife, and the Chancellor will be fined. Yes, they broke the laws they expected everyone else to abide by. Yes, Boris Johnson repeatedly lied to parliament and the public. He is a liar by profession and predilection. Today will be a big day for all those people who spent the Brexit debates coming up with fantasy cabinets and writing woeful satirical songs. There are so many retweets up for grabs, but behind all the sound and fury, the final straw machine is whirring on.