At NATO he had at least tried to think long term, making a public promise to increase defense spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030. However, his prime ministership ended a week later – then the only military comment he would make was in private he compares himself to a Japanese soldier who refused to surrender for 29 years after the second world war. The joke was remarkably apt. The remarkable disintegration of his premiership began the moment he left behind the NATO photocalls. Chris Pincher stepped down as deputy captain the night Johnson returned, following allegations that Pincher had groped two men at the Carlton Club in Westminster. The story was bad enough, but what followed was a devastating series of evasions, half-truths – and even the sense that Johnson thought it was all a joke. On Friday last week, Downing Street first said the prime minister was not aware of any allegations against Mr Pincher when he promoted him in February, then hours later that he was not aware of any “specific” allegations. However, even this proved to be inaccurate as more complaints about Pincher surfaced. Johnson’s former adviser Dominic Cummings, long awaiting the opportunity to deliver the final blow, suggested that Johnson had known and referred to his colleague as “Pincher by name, pincher by nature”. More damning evidence was to follow. On Tuesday morning, a former senior Foreign Office civil servant, Simon McDonald, said there had been a similar previous incident with Pincher when he was junior foreign secretary in 2019, and that Johnson had been “informed in person of the initiation and outcome of the investigation”. Jason Groves, the Daily Mail’s pro-Tory political editor, began that day’s briefing for lobby reporters by asking the prime minister’s spokesman: “Are you going to tell the truth?” – prompting a somewhat embarrassed civil servant to reply that they provided “the information available to me at the time of each meeting”. Johnson toured the tea rooms to try and salvage the situation. But as Conservative MP Gary Sambrook revealed at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Johnson tried to blame everyone for banning the perpetrator. According to Sambrook, Johnson said: “There were seven MPs at the Carlton Club last week and one of them should have tried to intervene to stop Chris drinking so much.” Sambrook was applauded as he called for his resignation, but by then it was already clear that Johnson’s premiership was game over – even if Johnson was the last to see it. The night before, Sajid Javid and then Rishi Sunak had resigned, making similar statements nine minutes apart that focused on the issue of Johnson’s character. “The British people rightly expect integrity from their government,” Javid wrote in a statement released at 6.02pm. Sunak wrote: “The public expects the government to behave properly, competently and seriously.” The statements appeared coordinated even if both camps denied it. The resignations of mostly junior ministers continued at an extraordinary pace on Wednesday, the first coming while the new chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, was doing a morning radio tour of the media and continuing with Welsh Secretary Simon Hart at 10.33pm. By midnight the final number of departures was over 40. It was an easy day for Keir Starmer. At Prime Minister’s Questions, the Labor leader read out an account from a Pincher victim – “he slowly brought his hand down in front of my groin” – in the deliberate tone of a prosecutor. He then pressed Johnson on why the former whip had been promoted in the first place. Since then, ministers have begun gathering in Downing Street, mostly to demand Johnson’s head and a handful to encourage him to stay. The prime minister saw them individually. Even Priti Patel, the usually loyal home secretary, said she believed she could not continue. It was expected that Johnson, having taken the temperature of his older colleagues, would end up in the game, just like Margaret Thatcher a generation before. There was even a scheduled early afternoon phone call with the Queen. But, remarkably, Johnson concluded for a moment that he could fight. In a final show of frustration and recovery of his waning power, he sacked Michael Gove from the Cabinet while Gove’s children and ex-wife Sarah Vine watched Love Island. According to Vine, a columnist for the Daily Mail, Gove told her: “The Prime Minister called me a few minutes ago and said it was time to back off. I respectfully said, “Prime Minister, if anyone should back down, it’s you.” Downing Street said Gove had to go because “you can’t have a snake who isn’t with you on any of the big arguments”. That night they told the Sun that Tory rebels would have to “dip their hands in blood” if they were to oust a prime minister who had won the election in December 2019. A night’s sleep and the counterattack was over, though some could not wait. Michelle Donelan resigned as education secretary shortly before 9am on Thursday after about 36 hours in the post. He told Johnson it was the only way to “force your hand.” If he had waited the length of a math class, he might have changed his mind. With more and more resignation letters landing on the Downing Street doormat, officials stopped taking calls from reporters on Thursday morning, prompting the immediate suspicion that it was finally over. Johnson apparently got up at 6 a.m. to write a resignation speech in which he would blame “herd instinct” for his departure rather than any particular misjudgment — about Pincher or parties or propriety. It was left to the BBC’s new political editor, Chris Mason, to tell the nation, taking a phone call from Downing Street while live on Radio 4 just after 9am. On his return to the microphone, with a guest gently pushed aside, a cool Mason said simply: “The Prime Minister has agreed to resign.”
