Histories of the present: Boris Johnson’s dissembling
Boris Johnson is not someone given to veracity. It no doubt goes back to his Eton days when it was noted that he felt that rules that applied to everyone else did not apply to him.
This clearly applied to his job as Prime Minister. Pressed by Keir Starmer and others to resign after Sue Gray’s initial report into Downing St’s numerous lockdown parties, Johnson evaded the issue, blamed others and claimed he was just the person to sort matters out. Now a preliminary report of a Committee of MPs into the issue has concluded that Johnson may have misled Parliament.
Johnson departed from several journalistic jobs at the Times and the Telegraph on both cases because he had made stories up
In 2004 when Michael Howard was leader of the Opposition, Johnson was Shadow Arts Minister and Tory Vice-Chair. He had an affair with Petronella Wyatt and she became pregnant. She decided to have an abortion and Johnson tried to keep the matter out of the public domain.
However news of it started to appear in the tabloid press. Johnson tried unsuccessfully to lie his way out of it. Howard decided that Johnson would have to go not over the affair or the abortion but because he had lied about it. He instructed his spokesman Guy Black to speak to Johnson and get him to resign. Johnson refused. After watching a Liverpool football match Howard then spoke directly to Johnson at 6.30pm and sacked him. It was November 13th 2004.
Johnson’s view was that only by being sacked would get sympathy, a resignation would not do it.
Johnson’s lengthy career of dissembling may be about to conclude its Parliamentary focus. He still however has his book on Shakespeare and his biography to work on…
Source Sonia Purnell, Just Boris
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