Johnson Has Squandered His Only Chance Of Redemption

It was not a great day for Boris Johnson; indeed, in a way, it was the worst since he was forced to resign last year. Any remote hopes that he might somehow make the biggest comeback since Lazarus and replace Rishi Sunak as prime minister were left shattered on the floor of the Grimond Room of parliament's Portcullis House.

Even if Mr Sunak managed to lose every single Conservative seat in the May local elections, crashing the economy along the way, his party would not turn to Mr Johnson as a saviour.

Indeed, Mr Johnson looks increasingly likely to be sanctioned by the House of Commons committee of privileges, and is facing the possibility of a recall petition and a by-election in his seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. He looks finished, haunted even, as the truth catches up with him.

Mr Johnson's performance in front of the committee was at best unconvincing. By turns tetchy, testy, arrogant, angry and rattled, waving his fist about and interrupting his questioners, his appearance served as a reminder that, for all his flair as a campaigner, he is unfit to hold high office. Humility is admittedly not his style, but he couldn't even bring himself to utter a few tokenistic words of sympathy to all the victims of the pandemic who felt so grievously let down by his behaviour.

Time and again Johnson tried, and failed, to obfuscate, bluster and bluff his way past patient and forensic questions from the committee, which was ably chaired by Harriet Harman. It was parliamentary scrutiny at its very best, with none of the bias of a "kangaroo court", as some of Mr Johnson's outriders have claimed it to be.