Long Boris: with by-election collapse imminent, Johnson is the political sickness the Tory party can’t shake off

Two out of three of the impending by-election disasters would never have happened if Johnson hadn’t flounced out of parliament, writes Sean O’Grady

Perhaps some thought that Johnson’s departure from Number 10 a year ago would cure the malaise, but his scandals simply multiplied (Getty/AP)

Without wishing to make light of long Covid, an all-too genuine and debilitating illness that has wrecked lives, the permanent crisis the Conservative Party finds itself in does suggest a kind of political sickness that just cannot be shaken off.

Some call it, admittedly in poor taste, “long Boris”, though this sums up the pathology of the condition quite well.

This is because so many of the Sunak government’s problems date back to Johnson’s time in office: his chaotic, irrational decision making, his “style of government” (to put it politely), the lies, Partygate, wallpaper-gate – and all manner of scandals that just keep coming, seemingly without end.