In the James Bond film Casino Royale, a high ranking member of Spectre known as ‘Mr. White’ decides to assassinate the banker, Le Chiffre, after he discovers he’s lost over £100 million. Just before he carries out the deed using a silenced pistol he tells Le Chiffre that, “Money isn’t as valuable to our organization as knowing who to trust.”  (He’s actually being a bit disingenuous here, because he’s already made plans to recover the money.)

Whatever.  The point here is that for any leader, good or bad, knowing who to trust is enormously important, and that betrayal may well have serious, indeed devastating consequences.

I’m wondering at the moment if Boris Johnson is rather wishing he was simmarly armed and could dish out summary justice to errant members of his team.  The issue here being that somebody has exposed the existence of some Christmas ‘parties’ at number 10 last year, and it’s had a devastating impact on his government’s credibility.   We don’t really know the nature of these parties, except they were allegedly ‘raucous’, and there is film of one employee practicing how she’d explain it to the police. The party might have been just a couple of bottles of wine brought out after an important meeting, or it might have been a wilder office disco including the traditional misuse of the photocopier.  

But the point is they were illegal, because we were supposed to be locked down, and shouldn’t have happened.  It’s really not good, and those involved should be dealt with as appropriate under the law.

But here’s the thing.  It looks like somebody who was put in a trusted and responsible position by the government, has decided to betray their employer.  Not though, as a matter of principle – if that were the motivation they’d have gone to the police at the time.  No, they kept the information to themselves for almost a year, before releasing it at a time when it could do most damage – to both the Government and also to the public health campaign to control this wretched virus. 

So I can kind of understand if Boris wishes he had a silenced SIG P230 and the backing of a secretive organisation to cover his tracks.