Party leader is the one thing Tory MPs don’t need to change

A MID THE endless media speculation about the Prime Minister’s future, one question has gone largely unasked: what if the Conservative Party’s real problem is not Boris Johnson, but all the others?

For while the PM can be held responsible for not clamping down sufficiently on lockdown gatherings in Downing Street – even though he didn’t attend most of them – it is a bit of a stretch to blame him for appalling behaviour by an ever-lengthening list of Tory MPs.

To that list we can now add the name of Chris Pincher who has resigned as deputy chief whip – ironically, one of the party’s key disciplinarian roles – after reportedly groping two men at a Tory private members’ club.

The low-profile Pincher has at last achieved the distinction of becoming a household name beyond his own household, but only by getting so drunk that he could barely stand up and then allegedly allowing his hands to wander into places they should never have ventured.

There is no excuse for physical harassment, not even the one he advanced in his resignation letter to Johnson: “Last night I drank far too much.”

GIVEN that this latest scandal has erupted so soon after the disastrous consequences of sleazy behaviour by two other now former MPs – the Commons chamber porn-watcher Neil Parish and Imran Ahmad Khan who was jailed for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy – Johnson would be forgiven for holding his head in his hands.