IT’S not been a good week for the UK’s political classes. Has any other period in the history of modern British politics been marked by the presence of so many charlatans and fake actors?

The resignation of Boris Johnson as an MP has seemed inevitable for such a while now that the seriousness of what triggered the process leading to it is easily overlooked.

So, too, is another troubling thought: that many of those in his own party who have cast him into the outer darkness were either eager participants in the lockdown bacchanals, or apologists for them.

Mr Johnson was finally forced out when he was given notice that the partygate investigation into his conduct during lockdown intended to take a dim view of it.

Yet, what was much more egregiously immoral than the lockdown parties was how many Conservative politicians viewed this lethal pandemic as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to cash in.

As Covid-19 killed tens of thousands of British citizens, these Tories were busy doing what Tories naturally do: making financial killings in the midst of human suffering.

Dozens of party donors, along with friends and relatives of senior Conservative figures, were given privileged access to contracts for supplying vital PPE equipment.

No questions were asked of the eye-watering estimates being produced by the putative PPE suppliers. And no-one seemed to care about the obvious risks to frontline NHS staff wearing protective gowns supplied by sweetie manufacturers and other firms which had no previous experience in the making of these items.

In his delusional resignation letter, Mr Johnson insisted he had done nothing wrong and suggested he’d been the victim of a stitch-up by an alliance of anti-Brexiters and Labour sympathisers.

He should, of course, be looking no further than those in his own party who hope that by jettisoning him there will be no further scrutiny of their own foul deeds during lockdown.

Antisocial media

THERE are few forums more nauseating than Twitter when the fall of an unpopular public figure has occurred. Politicians pile in with incoherent, j’accuse diatribes.

Much of this, of course, acts as a camouflage for their own failures and shady dealings. Some commentators view it as low-hanging fruit, good for a column or two when they can burnish their faux-liberal credentials safe in the knowledge that no-one will disagree.

They all jump on to Twitter in a feeding frenzy seeking to outdo one another in conveying wit and wisdom in 280 characters. Later on, they will convene over soy frappuccinos to compare each other’s collected “likes” and retweets.

Last night, amid this slurry of sanctimony, I happened upon one tweet which stood alone in its succinctness, clarity and sincerity. Step forward Bob Davis, professor of religious and cultural education at Glasgow University.

The prof, a reassuringly reasonable and sane voice on Twitter, had this to say about Mr Johnson’s demise: “Good. A terrible Prime Minister. An impossibly flawed man mastered by his own passions – squandering what could have been at one point prodigious talent, immense privilege and boundless opportunity. No-one is beyond redemption but Boris Johnson sits on its edge.”

SNP gravy train

MR JOHNSON’s resignation merely epitomised the shallow opportunism currently afflicting all of our political parties and civic elites. The SNP have concluded a decade-long betrayal of their followers by quietly ditching independence and moving towards devo max. This is the favoured position of its feckless professional wing who want the gravy train to roll along for another few stops.

The board of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has been caught in the act of targeting bereaved families who have complained about the treatment of their loved ones.

The chaotic deposit return scheme has exposed the Scottish Greens as the most incompetent, amateurish and costly political unit operating anywhere in the UK. And Sir Keir Starmer is never more than a month away from ditching another sacred tenet of socialism.

You know it’s bad when someone like Douglas Ross can speak for the majority of Scots by raising reasonable concerns about some trans activists’ creepy obsession with gaining access to children.

Ferry well done

ONE of the many failures of the SNP in government has been its inability to provide a working ferry service to communities living on Scotland’s islands.

And so it was heartening to learn that BBC Scotland’s eight-strong, publicly-funded investigations team had won a prestigious award for its recent documentary chronicling the mayhem and mishaps of Scotland’s ferries crisis.

This was essential public information journalism at its very best.

Long before BBC Scotland’s interest in the matter, readers of The Herald had been kept up to date with the unfolding ferries scandal by a series of stories from our own Martin Williams operating in a team of one.

It’s good to see print and broadcast journalists working side by side on the stories that matter.