It doesn't take long for this kind of thing to become acceptable and 'normal' and Johnson has lived his life this way ...
... the latest scandal takes people's eye off the previous one.
Then comes the condescending grin and 'we all need to move on and get the job done'. The trouble is that he gets the job done in a Harry Redknapp fashion ... big gestures to keep the supporters happy but a trail of destruction and wasted finances in his wake.
This is spot on and exactly the kind of thing that a casual voter might not necessarily see.
I read a book called "The Fifth Risk" by Michael Lewis who is one of my favourite writers and has given great insight into the financial crisis, the pandemic and government (American focused) with his books in the last 15 years. In it, he discusses the transition from the 2nd term Obama government to the Trump one and how it affected day to day governing of the country.
Trump didn't fill the Government positions in the same way all previous presidents did. He didn't listen to any advice of those already in the roles and then he hired businessmen and loyalists into the decision making roles.
So he spouted off publicly about "cutting $1.8bn dollars of government waste" in the department of energy and criticised the Democrats, mocked climate change etc. But of course, the real story was that the Department of Energy does far more that actually look at energy or climate change. They spend $3bn a year cleaning up lethal waste that is still the residue of the Manhattan project in the 1940's. If any of the waste gets into the water, it can poison most of the Pacific North West. But of course, if that happens a decade from now, Trump won't get the blame for cutting funding and he won't care.
It feels like this government isn't too far away from that. There are dozens of bad decisions made by this government. I genuinely believe PPE and the handing out of government contracts to "friends and family" has cost lives and wasted billions. But whilst overseeing that scandal behind the scenes, they've managed to convince their supporters of a "Great British Vaccine" and being ran better than the EU as if it's all still about Brexit.
They spent time dog whistling about the opposition wanting to subvert democracy over Brexit, but at the same time illegally subverted it themselves by proroguing parliament and by attempting to restrict Judicial review so that they couldn't be held accountable for their actions.
Then of course, we have the scandals of Priti Patel bullying, Owen Patterson lobbying for special interests and Robert Jenrick pushing through housing deals for Tory donors. An independent commission reached the conclusion that Patel had bullied her staff but Johnson rejected it. Patterson was taking money from companies as a Special Advisor and subsequently they received £500m of government contracts. Johnson tried to change the disciplinary process in parliament instead so his mate didn't have to be suspended.
I haven't even mentioned Matt Hancock, Jennifer Accuri, Dominic Cummings, Partygate, lying to the Queen, Downing Street flat refurb, Zac Goldsmith's Villa, Cash for Honours, 2 other separate sex scandals involving Tory MP's, voting against school meals, the rail strikes and lying about 50,000 nurses.
Johnson will be ousted either by his own party or at the next election. A couple of these scandals will live on in his legacy, but by and large, he'll come away relatively unscathed, whilst the country will have wasted billions of pounds and had services cut to the bone - things that Tory party donors have been benefactors of.
At this point, anyone still prepared to vote for him either has their fingers in their ears or actually doesn't give a **** about anyone but themselves to a disturbing degree.
