BORIS Johnson has chosen to go down the “incompetent” route in his handling of the Partygate saga, which ordinarily would not be a sensible choice for a politician.
But when the other option is admitting you have lied to the public and repeatedly to MPs, I can see why he has chosen the former.
By saying he did not think he had broken the law which he and his ministers designed and implemented, Mr Johnson is effectively excusing his behaviour and hoping the public will believe him and move on.
The problem with this approach is that while it may buy him some time in the short term, the “election-winning” PM may struggle to convince voters to put their faith in him come the next vote in 2024.
His backbenchers will be all too aware of the perilous situation their party is now in, and away for some MPs will already be preparing for the next polling day.
Mr Johnson has not only painted himself as an idiot, he has also handed his opposition a goldmine from which they will continue to extract nuggets.
While the Partygate saga has been a headache for the Prime Minister, it has also created problems for Douglas Ross which could fundamentally damage his reputation, too.
The Scottish Tory leader was the first MP out of the gate when the scandal broke, saying the Prime Minister had to be “held to account” for his actions.
He called for him to resign, generating reams of copy in the following day’s newspapers, prime time slots on the evening news and praise all round from even some of his fiercest critics. However sources say Mr Ross was advised not to press the red button so hastily back in January, and warned that his decision would create very uncomfortable questions later.
At the time, his advisers insisted they were confident they could navigate the tangle, and there would be “no issue” with his position if Boris Johnson was still in charge at the next election.
Whether it is evidence of his political naivety or, more likely, his brass neck, Mr Ross slowly began retracting his opposition to Mr Johnson.
Threats to ban him from the Scottish Tory conference were dismissed as some MSPs getting carried away, and two months after calling for him to quit, Ross withdrew his letter of no confidence to the powerful 1922 committee.
In true Ross style, he was upfront and unapologetic, setting out his reasons for doing so. The war in Ukraine, and the advantage it would give Putin to see the Conservatives in a leadership contest, was too much, he said.
Yesterday he again refused to call for the PM to quit, but tellingly would not speculate when asked if he would be his party’s leader at the next General Election.
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