British prime minister fined for breaking his own lockdown laws

The real scandal was lockdown, not the lies and hypocrisy of our leaders.

So, it’s the day the British commentariat has been yearning for. The prime minister and the chancellor are to be issued with fines for breaking Covid rules. Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have today become the first occupants of their respective offices to be sanctioned for breaking the law while in post, following the police investigation into lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street. The PM’s wife, Carrie Johnson, has been fined as well.

What happens next is anyone’s guess. Will Tory MPs now try to oust the PM, or will the war in Ukraine put ‘partygate’ into perspective? Is Rishi Sunak toast, following a week of dreadful press over his wife’s tax arrangements? Will civil servant Sue Gray’s long-awaited report into the parties – delayed by the Met investigation – be the final hammer blow? Only time will tell.

But what’s already clear is that no one comes out of this well. This scandal has wrecked Johnson’s popular support, and rightly so. This alleged man of the people put the people under house arrest and then started having parties. At the height of the first lockdown – the hazard-tape-on-benches days – his aides were getting pissed in the No10 garden. Then Johnson lied about the rule-breaking over and over again. It became an insult to our intelligence.