Has Boris Johnson’s blunder killed the dead cat diversion tactic?

Instead of saving Johnson’s skin, the whole sorry episode appears to have confirmed the opinions of those who had doubts about his character and hardened critics’ resolve to remove him from office, writes Andrew Woodcock

Thursday 03 February 2022 21:30 GMT
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<p>The Savile smear had been circulating for some time on far-right websites and gained traction among conspiracy theorists </p>

The Savile smear had been circulating for some time on far-right websites and gained traction among conspiracy theorists

Everyone knows the philosophical puzzle of Schrödinger’s cat – if said moggy is sealed inside a soundproof box, how can we truly say whether it is alive or dead?

This week’s debacle over Jimmy Savile has created a new conundrum, which we could call “Johnson’s Dead Cat”. If a politician tries to distract attention from his shortcomings by using a tactic that highlights those shortcomings, can he truly be said to know what he’s doing?

The “dead cat” diversion is the principal political insight of Sir Lynton Crosby, the Australian polling guru who masterminded Mr Johnson’s London mayoral campaigns and has reportedly been summoned back into No 10 to get him out of his current Partygate scrape.

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