Boris Johnson is determined to keep Partygate in the public’s mind and it’s trashing his own legacy

Boris Johnson has chosen strange political hills to die on.

His departure from Parliament was driven by his anger about the row with Rishi Sunak over his resignation honours list, and the investigation by the Commons Privileges Committee into whether he lied over “Partygate”. There is little question that his political legacy, so promising after the 2019 election which promised a totally new form of Conservative government, has been squandered.

Part of that is the fault of Mr Johnson himself – his ill-discipline, inability to focus and tendency to allow personal foibles to overshadow the work of government.

But part was beyond his control. The pandemic sucked up attention during Britain’s first year outside the EU; inflation, driven primarily by global factors but exacerbated by the poor judgement of the Bank of England, presented another urgent crisis; and Mr Johnson’s successors, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, have more or less abandoned the big state, cultural conservative vision that won him a majority.

That is not why Mr Johnson is fuming, and is not what his now daily public statements take aim at. He is adamant that the process used to decide which of his allies could enter the Lords was unfair – as if that is among the priorities of the voters who put their trust in him.

And he is apparently determined to keep the row over Partygate front and centre of the public’s mind, heedless of the fact that most have already made their mind up and firmly believe that he misled the nation.

Mr Johnson may not mind that his every intervention is a gift to Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party. But why does he continue to trash his own legacy?