Boris Johnson's position as prime minister and leader of the Conservative party is on a knife edge. He has long been branded a liar by many and the chickens now seem to be coming home to roost. Apologising profusely in the House of Commons for his now obvious indiscretions regarding the holding of a party in the garden of Number 10 Downing Street, in the midst of the lockdown in summer 2020, Mr Johnson has only poured petrol on the flames. Monitoring the media yesterday, there has been a chorus of calls for his resignation. This is more than just the usual suspects however. Not only has Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, been highly vocal in his criticism of the prime minister but members of the Conservative party - notably Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross and Westminster MP, William Wragg - have also come out and called for Mr Johnson to quit.
But this is not the only time Mr Johnson has demonstrated ineptitude. Even before ascending to the role of prime minister he was a loose cannon. Many Conservatives conveniently ignored his shortcomings when he was chosen to lead their party. Let's consider his performance as foreign secretary for a few moments. His scandalous mishandling of the Nazaneen Zaghari Radcliffe case might have been a resigning matter. But of course he had not the slightest intention of doing so. In addition to this was his well known failure to attend in the House of Commons when he should have been. Whilst remaining critical of the then prime minister, Theresa May, he eventually resigned as foreign secretary, a role he held with indistinction.
Biding his time on the back benches, Mr Johnson took every opportunity to ingratiate himself with members of his party membership. He built a team around himself all working hard so that he could take full advantage of the vacancy once Mrs May left office as prime minister and leader of the Conservative party. When this eventually happened the, at one point, large field of candidates for the leadership of the party was cut down to Mr Johnson and former health secretary, Jeremy Hunt. The two spent much of the summer of 2019 battling it out for support to succeed Mrs May. Mr Johnson was to prevail and one of his first big decisions was to call a general election for 12 December. The Conservatives duly won a stunning majority of 80 seats, largely applicable to Mr Johnson's popular leadership.
The Tory leader was default prime minister after succeeding Mrs May, but the general election victory gave him a mandate of his own. Now he was free to go ahead and do what he wanted. But little did we know that in a matter of months a world wide pandemic would hit. In March 2020 Coronavirus began affecting us all and it demanded a strong response from governments. In the absence - at the time - of vaccines one of the first reactions was to impose restrictions. The public would not be allowed to congregate and everyone had to stay at home. Employers were hit by having to furlough staff and the unemployment rate zoomed upwards. All this put huge pressures on the public finances, not to mention the pressures on individuals.
The British government was criticised for it's poor response, initially, to the pandemic. People should not have been allowed to meet in public areas. One of the first big error of judgement was when Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson's chief advisor, was reported to have travelled by car to the north of England to see his parents and get his eyes tested - right in the middle of the lockdown. Mr Cummings escaped without having to resign but this has left a bad smell, one that hasn't gone away from Downing Street.
To the present moment then. We have seen a strong roll out of the vaccines and more people are protected against the terrible scourge of Covid 19. However this has come at a cost to our mental health. With many of the restrictions now lifted we can get on with our lives to a degree (mask wearing and social distancing notwithstanding). But there is real anger that at a time when the restrictions were imposed friends couldn't see each other and dying relatives were prevented from seeing their families. While this was all going on, we now know, the British prime minister and his colleagues in Number 10 Downing Street were having "boozy parties", to quote Sir Keir Starmer. This should not have been happening.
Allegra Stratton, a senior advisor working in Number 10, had to resign after she gave a poorly judged performance at a mocked up press conference. Stratton had jokingly suggested there had been no social distancing amid reports of parties in the prime minister's official residence. Now with more revelations of parties going on in Downing Street it is Mr Johnson who is being pressured to resign. Holding positions as prestigious as editor of The Spectator, to serving as Mayor of London to holding various posts in high government, the question must be asked: Is the show now over for Boris Johnson?
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