‘More kids than he has allies’: Boris’s hooliganism is history, but Rishi’s cowardly no-show was an own-goal
THE INDEPENDENT SAYS Seven. Just seven last ditch supporters of Boris Johnson, The Not-So-Magnificent Seven, saddled up and went into the parliamentary lobbies to support their lost leader and vote against the Privileges Committee’s report into his lying to parliament. Seven. Johnson’s got more kids than that. It’s a miserable footnote to the career of a man who, for a while, bestrode British politics like a colossus, or at least a great big squatting toad.
They were not even his most high-profile fans. We might just recognise the names of Bill Cash, Euro mega bore, and the elegantly-tailored Desmond Swayne, a lookalike of Captain White (off the Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons children’s television puppet show); but the rest of the die-hands were obscure: Joy Morrissey, Nick Fletcher, Karl McCartney, Adam Holloway and Heather Wheeler. With all due respect, these seven dwarves were all that is left of his once mighty army, the phalanx of 365 seats and a majority of more than 80 he won in the Christmas election of 2019.