London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

Lying didn’t work for Boris Johnson, so now he’s turned to bribery

Lying didn’t work for Boris Johnson, so now he’s turned to bribery

The prime minister’s response to ‘partygate’ is a wild orgy of populist policies, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins
For the past fortnight Sue Gray’s report on “partygate” has been hovering over Downing Street like a huge vulture, seeking only somewhere to land. A redacted version is expected imminently. In the meantime, Boris Johnson is panicking. For partygate he has substituted policygate, a wild orgy of populist pronouncements designed to show he is still in charge. If Johnson cannot lie himself out of trouble, perhaps he can bribe himself out of it.

What do you want, everyone? I would get the Treasury to let you off extra taxes, if only that mean Rishi Sunak would let me. I can promise help with gas bills and heating allowances. I can shower the north of England with money and mayors. I can let you visit your loved ones in care homes, perhaps. I can even get on a plane, fly east and pretend to threaten Vladimir Putin with war.

I can remind the country of my Brexit triumph by cutting £1bn in bureaucracy. I can let NHS staff off vaccinations and get tough on oligarchs’ boltholes. I can promise to sack the Downing Street madhouse staff and move my office to the House of Commons tearoom. I can leave Carrie in charge.

British government is experiencing the reality of personality politics. There is no cabinet government, just cabals of courtiers, rivals and enemies. There is no democratic legislature, just an alternative court in waiting. Leadership has no recourse to ideology, to principles, even to a programme. Party has no meaning beyond opinion polls. The one guiding fixation of the UK government is its leader’s desire to stay in power.

It is unlikely that the outcome of the contest between Sue Gray’s report on partygate and the Metropolitan police’s inquiry was a deliberate save-Johnson tactic. That suggests a cunning beyond the wit of the present Downing Street. It rather indicates the collapse of parliament as any sort of monitor of standards in public life. But, at the end of the day, Gray will have taken the heat off the prime minister. He has been given a last desperate throw of the dice.

That it takes the imminence of defenestration to concentrate Johnson’s mind on government is comment enough on his leadership. His posturing against Russia is an absurd diversion. He has lost his battle with Sunak on the rise in national insurance. His daily one-man conduct of the health sector is whimsical and extravagant.

The cabinet and parliamentary party are now aware, with varying degrees of explicitness, that they have a prime minister unable to conduct coherent cabinet government. His usefulness to them has solely been to win elections. He has done this in the past through charm. He now seeks to do it by brazen survival instinct, by fight not flight.

The moment to topple Johnson was by a vote of his MPs a fortnight ago. The Sue Gray/Cressida Dick fiasco has awarded him time to assemble his fair-weather friends and cajole, bribe and bully them into giving him another chance. Johnson’s patronage, like his VIP contracts, must have yielded some tidy debts to be called in. There is a sense in Westminster that his darkest hour may have passed. The vulture still hovers, but Johnson’s luck has held and its feathers appear to have been plucked, at least for a while. And in politics a while is an age.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
Tens of Thousands of Young Chinese Get Up Every Morning and Go to Work Where They Do Nothing
×