Guardian Weekly

Sleaze cuts through Johnson’s veneer

At the start of November, it was difficult to find a single Labour MP who genuinely thought their party was in with a chance of winning the next election. The mood was one of quiet resignation at the prospect of a fifth consecutive defeat. The media had also largely written off Keir Starmer.

A fortnight of Tory sleaze stories later, with Boris Johnson at the centre of many, it all looks very different.

A golden rule of spin doctors, often attributed to Alastair Campbell (though he denies being the originator), is

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