The “unspoken reality” of Partygate

“The accepted narrative on Boris Johnson is that he is a liar,” says Camilla Long in The Sunday Times. He lies, we are told, “almost as easily as he breathes” – about Downing Street parties, about gold wallpaper, about airlifting Pen Farthing’s dogs out of Kabul. But perhaps the PM hasn’t been lying about any of it. Perhaps he is just “so disorganised and chaotic” that all sorts of things are happening in Downing Street without his knowledge – things he has no idea how to explain, let alone defend. After all, do you really think Johnson cares about wallpaper? Or loves animals so much that he personally intervened in the Farthing decision? Hardly.

But if Johnson wasn’t responsible for all these terrible decisions, then “what mystery person” was? There’s only one plausible candidate: his wife. Carrie “likes spending money”, loves animals and is apparently “addicted” to parties. And she clearly sees herself as the power behind the throne – she has orchestrated all manner of hirings and firings, cleansing No 10 of would-be “rivals”. Her defenders try to “advance the feminist notion that she is not responsible for her husband’s mistakes”. But there’s nothing feminist about her “terminally basic, avaricious outlook”. That’s the “big, awful, unspoken reality” of Partygate – “all roads lead back” to Carrie.