Men like Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison diminish politics

As Boris Johnson noted, in his ungracious and reluctant resignation speech, he departed despite a large mandate. He had won in 2019 — against a suicidally incompetent Labour opposition — with a landslide of 80 seats. Now, less than three years later, much of his backbench, and a good 50 of his ministers, have forced him out.

The mandate meant nothing, because it had been utterly squandered in a catastrophically bad response to the pandemic, a slew of scandals and, ultimately, the perception that there was something important missing from Johnson’s make-up — any sense of integrity.

The parallels with Scott Morrison here can be overplayed — he handled the pandemic better, for a start — but the same ultimate fate awaited both men: voters, and their own colleagues, had come to conclude they were toxic, untrustworthy people — and the stench of scandal around them became overpowering. And for both men, their gross mishandling and complete misreading of incidents of sexual predation and assault were immediate or, in Morrison’s case, longer-term causes of their dumping.