Sunak should not bow to pressure from Johnson and allow for complete transparency

Former PM Boris Johnson has been referred to the police by the Cabinet Office over further potential rule breaches during the pandemic. PIC: Aaron Chown/PA Wire

Wherever Boris Johnson goes, he is unable to shrug off the stench of rule breaking that came to define his time as Prime Minister.

If those Tories who still hanker for a return of Mr Johnson as PM needed any further indication of the damage that his time in Number 10 did to the reputation of the party, then they need only look at the latest comments from Sir Keir Starmer.

The Leader of the Opposition is able to make political gains off the back of further revelations of the former PM’s lockdown breaches.

The reality is that Mr Johnson was never fit for office. He wasn’t detail-oriented and lacked probity. This is not lost on the voters.

It is telling that the former PM seeks to blame everyone but himself for the lockdown breaches, claiming that the latest fallout is as a result of a briefing campaign against him.

The best thing that Rishi Sunak can do is act with complete transparency and even be seen to almost over comply with the process. The current Prime Minister has already sought to put daylight between himself and Mr Johnson with his pledge to lead with “integrity, professionalism and accountability”.

And Tories are looking to Mr Sunak to demonstrate that he is everything that Boris Johnson is not when it comes to leading the Government.

Unless Mr Sunak complies with the process, then the electorate will only feel that this is a continuation of the Boris Johnson administration and rightly ask questions of the current Prime Minister.

He should seize this opportunity to show that the party and indeed Government is under new management.

Sunak should not bow to pressure from Johnson and allow for complete transparency - The Yorkshire Post says