#1-Boris Johnson lying like a sociopath right to the end
The last straw was Johnson’s denial that he had knowingly appointed a political ally and alleged sex offender, Chris Pincher, to a series of senior government jobs despite being warned against it by other Conservative members of parliament.
Since 2017 Pincher has been repeatedly accused of physically molesting younger men, including Conservative members of parliament, but no action was taken against him and Johnson ignored the warnings.
After he made Pincher deputy chief whip in parliament in February, however, further complaints about Pincher’s behaviour were made – and Johnson immediately said that he had never been warned about him.
It was a typical Johnson lie, heedless of the fact that the people who actually had warned him were bound to speak up. And it turned out to be the last straw.
On Tuesday, a former senior civil servant said that he had personally warned Johnson about appointing Pincher. Suddenly, in a snap YouGov opinion poll on Tuesday evening, 69% of Britons were saying he should resign. Only 18% thought he should stay in office.
Even a majority of the people who voted Conservative in the last election thought Johnson should resign at once. He survived a confidence vote by his own Conservative MPs in June, but 41% of them voted to depose him as party leader (and therefore prime minister). They’ll be back at it again shortly, and this time they may succeed
The rules of the 1922 Committee, all the Conservative MPs in solemn conclave, say that if the leader survives a leadership challenge, there cannot be another one for a year. But there will be an election for the executive of the committee next week, and a new executive can change that rule if they wish. They probably will.
Johnson may have to be dragged out of Number 10 Downing Street kicking and screaming, but he is on his way out – so now it’s time to be charitable. When most people lie, they first do a swift mental calculation about whether it will work, because being caught out in a lie is generally worse than the cost of telling the truth.
Johnson doesn’t do that, or at least he doesn’t do it very well. He’s not even daunted by the fact that other people will know from personal experience that he is lying. In Chico Marx’s deathless words, “Who ya gonna believe? Me or your own eyes.”
This is the behaviour of a sociopath (or perhaps a psychopath – the words are used interchangeably in popular discourse). It refers to people who are usually male, intelligent and charming. They have serial relations with women and leave many children behind. They are solipsistic and manipulative – and frequent, persuasive liars.
Johnson ticks every box except one. He lies frequently, and he clearly has the sociopath’s ability to sincerely believe his own lie as soon as he says it. But his lies often fall apart within days, hours or even moments of being uttered; he just doesn’t bother to calculate the probability that they will believed. He is an incompetent liar.
That, more than any deed or misdeed, is what is now bringing him low. Even Conservative voters are sick of the lies, but he really can’t help it. So there’s no point in blaming him – but they really shouldn’t have voted for him, and now they understand that.
Most of Johnson’s remaining cabinet colleagues are just trying to figure out the best time to jump ship, and Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen had a word of advice for them all.
“Those who sit on their hands now [and stay in Johnson’s cabinet any longer] can rule themselves out for the coming leadership contest.”
#2 – Glee in Russia and sadness in Ukraine as Boris Johnson quits
The Guardian: Kremlin gloats as oligarch Oleg Deripaska welcomes end of ‘stupid clown’ but Zelenskiy pays tribute to ‘true friend’
Boris Johnson’s downfall has been met with delight and ridicule in Moscow, while in Kyiv Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed sadness at the resignation of his key ally.
Johnson, who championed weapons transfers to Ukraine in the early stages of the war and was the first leader of a G7 country to visit Kyiv in April, has emerged as a much-loved figure in Ukraine. “We all heard this news [of Johnson’s resignation] with sadness,” Zelenskiy said in a statement after the two leaders spoke by phone. “Not only me, but also the entire Ukrainian society, which is very sympathetic to you.
“We have no doubt that Great Britain’s support will be preserved, but your personal leadership and charisma made it special.”
In a separate Instagram post, Zelenskiy addressed Johnson as a “friend”, writing that “all Ukrainians were saddened by the news of the resignation of the leader of the Conservative party”.
In Russia Johnson’s support for Ukraine made him a frequent target for state media. The Kremlin described him as the “most active anti-Russian leader”.
“He doesn’t like us. We don’t like him either,” Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said on Thursday morning.
As news of Johnson’s looming resignation reached Moscow, other senior Russian officials and Kremlin-linked businesspeople used stronger words, saying he had finally got his reward for arming Ukraine against Russia.
“The moral of the story – do not seek to destroy Russia. Russia cannot be destroyed. You can break your teeth on it, and then choke on them,” the foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram.
The deputy chair of Russia’s security council, Dmitry Medvedev, gloated that Johnson’s resignation was “the logical result of British arrogance and mediocre policy”.
“Ukraine’s best friends are departing. We are waiting for news from Germany, Poland and the Baltic states,” the former Russian president wrote on Telegram.
Russia’s leading businessman, Oleg Deripaska, said it was an “inglorious end” for a “stupid clown” whose conscience would be plagued by “tens of thousands of lives in this senseless conflict in Ukraine”.
Others used the opportunity to mock Johnson’s recent statements. The Russian embassy in the UK tweeted a Bloomberg headline from last month, which quoted him as saying he planned to stay on as prime minister until the mid-2030s. “Something must have gone wrong,” the embassy’s caption above the headline said.
In Ukraine one adviser to the president, who requested anonymity because he was not authorised to speak on the subject, similarly said: “We believe that the UK will remain an important ally, but we are of course saddened. There was a genuine personal bond between the two leaders.”
Most of Johnson’s remaining cabinet colleagues are just trying to figure out the best time to jump ship, and Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen had a word of advice for them all.
“Those who sit on their hands now [and stay in Johnson’s cabinet any longer] can rule themselves out for the coming leadership contest.”