Sitting at the back of the public gallery watching Olly Robbins give his evidence to the foreign affairs select committee hearing on Tuesday felt horribly like the summer of 2022 all over again. Back then, the prime minister, Boris Johnson, had seen off numerous attacks on his integrity – most of them from Keir Starmer, for what it’s worth – mainly on the back of Partygate, but with the final blow being struck by the resignation of the little-known deputy chief whip after allegations of sexual misconduct.
The similarities are not lost on anyone like me who has witnessed all of this from relatively close quarters. In Johnson’s case, the main plank of his defence was either that he had been told nothing at all, or that what he was told (by officials or advisers) was selective at best. The trouble was that no one really believed him. He was PM and with that came the expectation that irrespective of the whys and wherefores, the buck had only one place to stop.
Yet despite these similarities there were also some glaring differences in the approach of both men in their attempts to save their prime ministerial skins.
For all his many documented sins, Johnson had always avoided that most heinous of them: the public sacrifice of others to save himself.
On the orders of the then whips’ office I sat alongside Johnson on the frontbench in the Commons on the numerous occasions on which he was forced to face the music. They were painful moments during which colleagues had to look simultaneously crestfallen and determined, loyal yet disappointed.
Looking back, we should not have been surprised that on one such occasion (when a full turnout was requested) only Michael Ellis and I had answered the call by the time the PM got to his feet.
Anybody who has ever served in the armed forces will tell you that the difference between officers and other ranks isn’t intellect, bravery or leadership qualities, it is accountability. In Starmer’s ever-lengthening list of leadership flaws is his willingness to cheerfully abandon his people at the most dangerous time in the battle, for no other reason than the protection of his own reputation. As one former MP and serviceman reminded me: “I’m afraid he is just not officer material.”
There is another telling difference that separates the bleak range of choices that confronted Johnson and that are not quite so evident now: the prospect of a credible alternative leader to replace him at the top of government. But with the looming prospect of electoral devastation at the local elections in two weeks, this could all change. Once Labour MPs wake up to the reality that their friends and teammates serving with dedication in council chambers across the land have been surgically removed thanks to an uninspiring PM, all hell will break loose. There will no longer be the need to explain to voters some complex area of Foreign Office vetting, just the crude reality that their man has run out of road and has morphed from asset to liability.
The final straw for Johnson was when his own troops deserted, me included. Unusually it started with some quite junior ministers, but it was accelerated by the departure of Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid, at which time the floodgates were well and truly open. I was one of the last to jump but one of only three in the cabinet at that time.
As “final straw” moments go it was being wheeled out by No 10 for the morning media round that did for me, a process even political masochists found wearying. Being grilled by Kay Burley at six in the morning was never much fun and only ever got worse. Never once were we able to “play off the front foot”, reduced always to the role of a hapless nightwatchman, sent in to bat in the gathering gloom against what felt like a brutal West Indies-style bowling attack.
I felt sorry for poor old Pat McFadden in that role on Wednesday morning on Sky News, presumably because, like me, none of the usual senior people were in the mood to accept the call from the No 10 comms people, another sign of the rapid decomposition all but No 10 can so easily smell.
In 2022, the wagons were already being circled and the final blow was imminent. If the 1922 Committee didn’t get Johnson, then the standards process probably would. Failing that, conscience might also prevail and it was with good grace that Johnson chose the final option and resigned. Starmer may well live to fight longer than many predict, but governing without power is not leadership; it’s desperate survival at best.
