THE faces said it all. Cabinet members were this morning doing a great impression of the crew facing the last moments of the Titanic as the TV camera panned from one glum expression to another during Tuesday’s weekly meeting in Downing St.

The first iceberg struck just after 6pm with Sajid Javid’s resignation, quickly followed minutes later by a second, Rishi Sunak’s. A coincidence? Probably not. This smacked of a co-ordinated strike meant to be lethal.

As I type, other resignations could follow. Oliver Dowden, of course, had already jumped overboard as party Chariman following the Conservatives’ dreadful by-election losses in Wakefield and Tiverton.

Having lost a majority of the backbenchers in the recent confidence vote, it now seems the PM is, one by one, beginning to lose his frontbench.

Through the partygate psychodrama, Johnson’s on-off relationship with the truth worried a significant number of his colleagues. The Chris Pincher saga with Downing St’s duplicity and dysfunction displayed for all to see has convinced more of them that the PM’s time is up.

In his bombshell letter, Javid said the British people “expect integrity from their government” but voters now believed Johnson’s administration was neither competent nor “acting in the national interest”.

In his equally incendiary message, Sunak insisted the “public rightly expect government to be conducted properly, competently and seriously” and added: “I believe these standards are worth fighting for and that is why I am resigning.” The implication was clear.

The resignations followed a highly uncomfortable TV interview in which Johnson was forced into a humiliating apology over his handling of the Pincher row, saying he had forgotten about being told of previous allegations of “inappropriate” conduct.

In the past hours, minister after minister were – yet again – sent onto the airwaves to defend the indefensible, saying they had been told by Number 10 the PM had not been aware of previous specific allegations about Pincher’s sexual misconduct. Only for it to emerge hours later that he had.

The final straw probably came with Johnson’s claim that he reappointed Pincher due to a memory lapse despite the fact he had labelled him “Pincher by name, Pincher by nature”.

The PM admitted he should have sacked his colleague when he was told in 2019 about claims against him when he was a Foreign Office minister but instead he went on to appoint him to other government roles.

Last week, Pincher quit as Deputy Chief Whip following claims that he groped two men at a private members’ club in London.

In his resignation letter Sunak, who had been due to make a joint economic speech with Johnson next week, also pointed to a policy gulf, noting how “it has become clear to me that our approaches are fundamentally too different. I firmly believe the public are ready to hear that truth”.

The now ex-Chancellor added: “Our people know that if something is too good to be true, then it’s not true. They need to know that whilst there is a path to a better future, it is not an easy one.”

Johnson has managed to steer the Tory ship through many dangerous waters and if no other ministers bail out, he might seek to struggle on. Yet after the resignations of two such senior figures, the push for a fresh confidence vote before the summer recess will grow. Coincidentally, the Conservatives’ 1922 backbench committee is due to meet on Wednesday.

 

How, one asks, can the Tory Party win a General Election campaign when former Cabinet ministers are writing their opponents' campaign slogans?

As of this evening, it looks like Johnson’s premiership has been holed below the water-line.

It could now be just a matter of time before HMS Boris finally sinks. Wednesday with PMQs and a scheduled appearance for Johnson before the Commons Liaison Committee could be quite dramatic.

The question on people’s lips will be after Javid and Sunak: who’s next?