TEXT message to Boris: hello chum, if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.

Is political life, I ask myself, slowly, and thankfully, easing back into some kind of normality when, rather than the headlines being dominated by the monstrous Covid-19, they have this week been screaming over a good old Tory-Labour ding-dong about sleaze.

Nostalgia, of course, ain’t what it used to be but it was refreshing to see Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer, ably helped by Ian Blackford, taking chunks out of each other at PMQs. One can, sadly, only imagine what the atmosphere would have been like if the Commons chamber had been jam-packed with MPs.

To recap, Prime Ministerial texts have, miraculously, emerged showing how, after a bit of lobbying from entrepreneur Sir James Dyson, Mr Johnson assured the pro-Brexit billionaire he would “fix” it so that Dyson workers would not have to pay more tax to come to Britain to build hospital ventilators at the start of the pandemic.

When a problem arose, Mr Johnson texted: “James, I am First Lord of the Treasury and you can take it that we are backing you to do what you need.” Two weeks later, Chancellor Rishi Sunak told MPs that the tax status of people who came to the UK to provide specific help during the pandemic would not be affected.

If the Dyson story had been an isolated incident, then I suspect most fair-minded people would have given Boris the benefit of the doubt; that the national crisis demanded immediate action and, after all, the intention was to save as many lives as possible with the manufacture of ventilators.

But, sadly for the PM, the Dyson story is contributing to a catalogue of chummery; from suppliers with links to politicians getting PPE contracts to PM-turned-lobbyist David Cameron and the Greensill texts to Chancellor Rishi Sunak. MPs were told yesterday by Sir Tom Scholar, the Treasury’s top official, how Mr Cameron had rung him directly on his official mobile phone about Greensill.

All of this is leading some to claim that Britain has become a “chumocracy” and we now have Government by WhatsApp. A spicey PMQs saw Sir Keir snap “sleaze, sleaze, sleaze” at the PM while Mr Blackford denounced the “Tory texts for contracts scandal”.

An unapologetic Boris insisted that he would have “shifted heaven and Earth” to get the ventilators that were needed. The PM made clear he had nothing to hide and promised to disclose all the texts. No 10 has now announced a full Whitehall leak inquiry into how Boris’s private texts became public.

Meanwhile, Sir James, who interestingly has just moved his main residency back to Britain – prompting speculation a peerage is in the pipeline – insisted he was proud of his company’s response in “the midst of a national emergency” and would “do the same again if asked”. Yet the cronyism controversy is set to be a political gift that keeps on giving for the Opposition.

Sir Keir and his colleagues, not to mention the SNP and Liberal Democrats, will ensure it will be a constant theme right up to the next General Election. Labour, somewhat hopefully, are calling for yet another inquiry by the grandees of the Commons Liaison Committee into the Dyson story.

The Opposition’s central charge was summed up by Labour veteran Margaret Hodge, who said: “What you do is jump the queue, you rig the system and you grab the cash. And that just isn’t on.”

READ MORE: Downing Street sources point finger at Dominic Cummings over Dyson text leaks

One of the Labour leader’s primary lines of attack against Mr Johnson is on leadership ie the PM’s lack of it. Complementary to this is the Left’s old target of Tory sleaze; that the Conservative leadership looks after its own and the rest of us can go hang.

Of course, it was not that long ago, under Tony Blair’s premiership, that a Labour Government faced accusations of sleaze in the cash for favours and cash for honours rows. And, intriguingly, when asked if Sir Keir received text messages from trade union chiefs about policy and, if so, would he be willing to publish those texts, the Labour leader’s spokesman fell conveniently silent.

To add to the latest row, suggestions have been made that the PM might have broken the ministerial code by not disclosing fully his texts with Sir James. The nub here is that while ministers have to fully disclose meetings, they do not have to fully disclose texts. Amid the Zoom-filled pandemic, the question arises: when is a meeting not a meeting? Answer: when it’s via WhatsApp. But this is likely to change.

READ MORE: Dyson and Greensill: Is this sleaze? Or is it just the Tories being themselves?

Downing St has been adamant: the PM has abided by the ministerial code and acted properly throughout. But it seems some within No 10 are not happy with Mr Johnson’s use of his mobile phone.

One insider described the PM’s WhatsApp habit as a “perennial problem” while another complained: “The problem with Boris is he replies to everyone.” One anecdote is that last year after a conference call with a select number of regional politicians, Boris gave out his number liberally, unaware the call was being listened to by a larger group of people.

Simon Case, the civil service chief, has urged the PM to change his mobile number, which he hasn’t done in over a decade. Boris huffed and refused. One former intelligence official raised the issue of security, noting: “I suspect James Dyson is not at the top of the securocrats’ worry-list but you have to ask whether this episode is indicative of a wider carelessness in government.”

Perhaps Boris, to be on the safe side, should have taken a leaf out of Mr Blair’s book; the former PM admitted during his whole premiership he didn’t have a mobile phone.