Brendan O'Hara: 'Boris Johnson should've resigned weeks ago'

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IN my seven years at Westminster, I’ve seen a number of dramas unfold.

I’ve seen two Prime Ministers resign. I’ve seen several MPs switch sides. And I have seen government ministers dragged before the House to apologise for a variety of indiscretions. These events are as rare as they are dramatic and cause the government no end of misery.

How dreadful must things be therefore when your “best day for a while” was the one in which one of your MPs defected to the opposition, you are accused of withholding public funds in return for parliamentary votes, and a senior MP advises colleagues that they should report being bullied, harassed and blackmailed by government whips to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

That, however, is the remarkable situation that Boris Johnson found himself in last week.

I suppose, however, when you’ve been found to be lying to parliament and the country about your multiple breaches of strict Covid lockdown rules, particularly at a time when people were unable to visit dying relatives in hospital or attend a loved one’s funeral.

And when you’ve admitted to having partied the night away before Prince Philip’s funeral and then been forced to issue a grovelling apology to the Queen.

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And when you have strenuously denied that there were any parties, only to do a screeching U-turn when confronted with overwhelming evidence, and then try to claim they were work events.

And when you go on national television to insist that absolutely no Covid lockdown rules were broken, only to concede days later that you were actually too stupid to understand the rules in the first place.

In those circumstances I suppose, one can see how the defection of an MP, being accused of misusing public funds, and having the police examine threatening, bullying, and harassing parliamentary colleagues, could be seen as having your “best day for a while”.

This astonishing but entirely self-made boorach has a long way to run yet, and we could soon be talking about ex-Prime Minister Johnson… that’s how much trouble he’s in.

But while this circus is playing out at Westminster, your energy bills are soaring, the cost of your weekly shopping is going through the roof, support for our poorest families has been removed, and the pensions triple-lock abandoned.

At a time of genuine crisis, we have a Prime Minister who should have resigned weeks ago but who is so focussed on saving his own skin that he has abandoned the “day job”.

You deserve so much better. Scotland deserves so much better.