Beergate and pledges to quit? It's all pure politics

Now that has promised to resign if he's found to have done something he knows he hasn't done or he wouldn't have promised to resign, could this be considered an opportune time to point out that every aspect of this months-long saga is, for want of a better word, complete bollocks?

- TOM PECK

Yes, of course, Durham Police has been harangued by Tory MPs and their gleefully pliant newspapers into reopening an investigation into Keir Starmer, in the desperate hope that Johnson might be saved through making his rival look almost as bad as he is.

Of course it's politically motivated. It is surprising how many people who take a passing interest in politics think they're making some kind of interesting point by pointing out that politics is politically motivated.

There has been fully four months now of outrage about the lawbreaking parties in Downing Street. And that outrage is entirely justified. But that too is politically motivated.

Has it been entirely forgotten who is behind it all? You know, that guy with the blog, Dominic Cummings, the one sitting in his basement desperately trying to take down the prime minister, his great galaxy brain still not quite large enough to compute that the only thing he's any good at is breaking things?

Four months of Keir Starmer and co, going on about integrity and trust in politics, gleefully firing off ammunition handed to them by the guy who knew about all this stuff from day one, but only decided to do anything about it once he'd lost his job and decided he had a personal vendetta to settle?