The Buffoon's Last Hurrah

And nothing but the truth

It was a horrendous day in Wester Ross, with 55mph winds, lashing rain, and battleship grey skies, we had no thoughts of going out. We lit a log fire and thought it might be worth watching the Parliamentary Privileges Committee allow Boris Johnson an unlikely chance to exonerate himself. During the first couple of minutes, he read a polite and contrite scripted introduction. He quickly lapsed into his well worn artifices that displayed all his self-absorbed tendencies to insist that he was innocent of misleading parliament. He was mangling his metaphors, juggling his vocabulary and facts were a figment of his imagination. He asked for a delay so he could vote against Rishi Sunak's' Northern Ireland protocol changes that were required to undo the damages that Johnson had caused when Prime Minister. Already the Privileges Committee were losing patience with the Great Pretender.

And so it continued, each set of questions answered with platitudes and the insouciant innocence of a man who is allergic to the truth. I dozed off as the questions were witlessly ignored and the rain turned to sleet. Johnson lost his temper as his erstwhile colleagues from the Conservative party harangued him for some kind of acknowledgement that he had deceived Parliament again and again. Johnson must have been hallucinating when he summarised his evidence by saying he had enjoyed the opportunity to present his case and that he was sure he had provided evidence to show that he had not been responsible for breaking Covid guidance. 

The whole performance was weirdly absurd alternative theatre, a bit like an episode of Magic Roundabout. At the end of which Zebedee would say, "you can't win them all, it's time for bed." Ermintrude (Harriet Harman) would certainly agree with that.