“Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cake and ale”
– Twelfth Night
I do not know if dead cats bounce. I am pleased to say I have never undertaken the experiment to find out. My guess would be bouncing would not be possible but the corpse might roll around a bit.
For a few weeks we saw a splendid example of a flying dead cat failing to bounce but rolling around for a fair while – a week and more.
The House of Commons saw the Prime Minister on the ropes. He was trying to defend the indefensible. He had been caught out partying at 10 Downing Street on numerous occasions at the very time he had lectured the rest of the nation about the importance of staying at home and keeping away from other people to, in his words, “protect the NHS and save lives.” The media was full of distraught relatives telling stories about the passing of their loved ones while not be able to be with them as they were following Boris Johnson’s advice which also happened to be the law of the land. Even the doctored Sue Gray report could not hide the agony of all this. The Metropolitan Police were investigating….eventually. The Prime Minister was in a corner, a very tight one, of his own making. For once it appeared boosterism, head scratching, invoking Churchill, quoting Latin or The Lion King and wrapping himself in the Union Jack was not going to give an escape route.
The British people are a very tolerant lot but they tend to draw the line at hypocrisy and double standards. Johnson’s back benchers were restless, some already calling for his resignation. The news media was interviewing people on the street and the phrase “one law for him and another for everybody else” was regularly heard. And then Johnson pulled off what he probably saw as a masterstroke. He pulled out a dead cat, tossed it high and watched it bounce in front of the Leader of the Opposition.
The cat had all the characteristics of the best of dead felines. It was a lie, a slur, a smear and had been debunked by, among others, Reuters and Full Fact.
It had been regularly used over a long period of time by far-right internet operators. This mattered little to Johnson. He only cared about the escape route it offered. His words were protected by Parliamentary privilege.
The smear was that Sir Keir Starmer, when working as Director of Public Prosecutions, had failed to prosecute Jimmy Savile. Johnson rubbed salt into the dead cat’s wounds by adding that Starmer was more interested in prosecuting journalists than Savile.
Johnson had been advised by one of his closest and longest serving advisers not to do it. He ignored her and she resigned.
As the dead cat lay there festering, it became increasingly clear that Johnson’s venal act was actually working. The media stopped talking about “partygate” and was now focused on the slur. Was it true? What was Starmer’s role in the Savile affair? Why had it been debunked? Was it really a slur? And on and on…… Loyal Ministers without an inch of integrity amongst them were despatched to the television and radio studios to keep the slur moving along. The BBC helped Johnson by showing the clip from his Common’s statement. Sadly, viewers would not be familiar with the arcane rules surrounding Parliamentary privilege. It risked many viewers taking at face value what they were hearing.
Some Ministers, who were clearly in the running for maximum Brownie points, more or less just repeated the slur while stopping just short of saying too much and risking a libel action. Others were a little more temperate suggesting this was not really about Starmer personally, but about the organisation he headed at the time so he still had questions to answer.
Pressure grew on Johnson to withdraw his remarks and apologise. Unsurprisingly he refused but used the invitation to clarify his remarks and thereby keeping the corpse rolling along. It was not about his mate Keir after all but the organisation he was head of at the time.
Johnson’s dead cat received a welcome kick down the road when, a few days later, Keir Starmer and David Lammy were harassed by a mob while walking through Westminster some shouting about Savile. Johnson went all pompous and condemned the mob’s behaviour without, of course, referencing what he had said as a possible instigator.
What does this say about Johnson? That he will reach for any weapon when cornered? Probably, but we already knew that.
That his words denote him as somebody not qualified for the highest civilian, non-royal job in the land? Absolutely – we have a Prime Minister who has complete disregard for the dignity of his office. A man who will twist, dodge and weave to save his own skin. A man who demeans his office and is either ignored or laughed at abroad.
It occurs to me a number of important points have been missed by a media eager to keep the story moving along for its own benefit. First, and most important, the Prime Minister has weaponised the suffering of Savile’s victims for his own benefit. They, with great dignity, keep their own counsel leaving us to only imagine the extra trauma Johnson’s antics must be heaping on them. The thought of reliving a trauma that nobody believed for years because the Prime Minister was prioritising his own survival at any cost.
Secondly, which political party was it that built Savile up in the first place? Who was it that gave him the keys to several hospitals where he could practice his abusive behaviour with impunity, who was it that gave him a gong and then a knighthood? It was, of course, Boris Johnson’s Tory Party. If he is so keen on apologies and explanations perhaps he should focus on own Party’s role in creating the Savile monster.
Thirdly, what has Savile got to do with partygate anyway? The answer is, of course, absolutely nothing. It was a distraction, a piece of whataboutery, a deflection.
The risk for Keir Starmer is that the slur will take root in the minds of voters and begin to undermine Labour’s spectacular recent recovery in the polls. At this stage there is little sign of that happening. The latest opinion polls show that voters have very much fallen out of love with “get Brexit done” Boris. It appears that “partygate” and “one law for you and another for the rest of us” have struck a chord with voters and for Johnson there may be no way back. Voters just do not like being taken for fools. Both Starmer and Rishi Sunak are preferred as Prime Minister and Labour is around 10% ahead. Still the next General Election could be years away and a lot can happen between now and then.
At the end of another week on the Johnson “Magic Roundabout”, what have we learned? We already knew he lies, dodges, weaves and gets on by the seat of his pants. What is more he turns this behaviour into a virtue. Boris is just one of lads after all.
There is a certain dignity attached to the office of Prime Minister. There are unwritten rules about conduct and behaviour. The office holder sits a little above the hustle and bustle of Parliamentary life. A person who sets and reinforces a standard of conduct in public life; a person with respect for the job who sets an example. When you speak you endeavour to speak for the whole nation not just a factional interest. Your political opponents may not like you but through your behaviour and conduct you have their respect. Likewise your respect for high office is reflected in respect from leaders from abroad.
By a country mile none of this describes Boris Johnson. His smearing of the Leader of the Opposition for personal gain demonstrates that. He should go and go soon and take his cabal of dim-witted supporters with him before he drags the proud of office of First Lord of the Treasury further into the alcohol laced gutter.
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