Boris Johnson is unfit to be Prime Minister of the UK.
On his climb up the greasy pole to Number Ten, the bumbling, the gadding about and the harmless chancer schtick were his electoral trump card.
He entertained the crowds and they loved him for it.
Popularity is a fickle mistress
Political ambition and public affection carried Johnson to his career zenith in the summer of 2019, when he became Prime Minister.
But popularity is a fickle mistress and the cult of personality which Johnson built up around himself was never going to sustain him through the Downing Street years, where great office brings with it great responsibility.
No Prime Minister can ever truly sit comfortably in their chair.
But, after the latest revelations of a bring your own bottle party in the Downing Street garden during a national lockdown, if Boris Johnson was truly a man of integrity and substance – such as his political inspiration Winston Churchill – he would not be waiting for someone to unseat him.
He would go of his own volition, shamefaced and sorry.
Should he need any more convincing, Alan Wightman – who watched his mother Helen’s funeral online two days before the soiree at No 10 – would be happy to put him in the picture.
Heads must roll
His message would be echoed by many thousands of others who suffered their own personal Covid trauma as the drinks flowed at Downing Street.
For that there is no excuse and heads must roll.
Boris Johnson’s tenure as Prime Minister has been peppered with scandal and controversy, only some of which has been self-inflicted.
But the latest revelations are an outrage too far.
They speak of a man of conceit, not candour. And one who does not know right from wrong – or, worse still, chooses not to care.
This newspaper has seldom spoken of a sitting Prime Minister in such unbecoming terms in more than 200 years of publishing.
But you can only bite your tongue for so long.
Boris has had his day and he needs to recognise that.
