Boris Johnson seems charmed – or, to put it another way, as slippery as a greased hog

The prime minster has discovered, probably long ago, that he can get away with not answering questions he doesn’t like. But how, asks Sean O’Grady, does he do it?

Johnson is the only person in government not answerable to somebody else, and he seems to rather like it (Getty)

Even when read and reread, the verdict of Kathryn Stone, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, on Boris Johnson’s freebie holiday is hard to understand, in any sense: “The commissioner did not conclude that Mr Johnson’s register entry was inaccurate since, as she notes, she was unable to conclude what Mr Johnson’s register entry should have contained.”

It’s an Alice in Wonderland sort of world when a prime minister can get away with breaking parliamentary rules because the authorities have neither the power, nor, perhaps, the inclination, to get him to tell the whole truth. And so, on a day when all eyes are on a rather significant football match coming up on Sunday, Johnson slips away, criticised but basically unscathed, from yet another scandal.

He seems charmed, or – to put it another way – as slippery as a greased hog. He survived the resignation of his own adviser on ministerial standards, Sir Alex Allan, when he ignored a report on Priti Patel’s bullying ways. His new adviser, Lord Geidt, told him off in only the most restrained fashion for his reluctance to reveal who paid for the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat. The Commons standards committee has twice before reprimanded him, in the space of four months, for “an over-casual attitude towards obeying the rules of the house”. Various other No 10 advisers have also quit, albeit usually over more policy-oriented differences. The prime minister has been publicly attacked, indeed mocked, by his own former senior adviser Dominic Cummings, for the way he runs the government. Unattributed briefings in the media suggest that Cummings is not alone. How does the prime minister get away with it?