ONE of the most telling moments of the ongoing Partygate saga came in the hours following the news that Boris Johnson had become the first sitting Prime Minister found to have broken the law.

Across every news channel, commentators and correspondents alike all repeated the same refrain, that, of course, "there is no question of him resigning…".

Had any other leader been the subject of such explosive news, those political predictions would have swung decisively in the opposite direction.

But this is Boris Johnson we’re talking about so the usual rules don’t apply.

He’s the swaggering cad who won over the voters despite his characters flaws being on full display for everybody to see.

He’s the greased piglet; the great political survivor and, as we’re so often told, a politician who isn’t subject to the same behavioural conventions as others.

Or, as his former colleague Amber Rudd once put it: he’s the life and soul of the party, but he’s not the man you’d want driving you home at the end of the night.

Bad timing, rotten luck and – of course – those pesky voters, mean that we’ve been lumbered with a reckless driver at the very moment we need a safe pair of hands.

It says a lot about where we are as a country that the assumption that Mr Johnson wouldn’t quit was made immediately and without qualification. Nobody entertained the idea that his time as Prime Minister might have smoothed his sharp, ruthless edges.

We didn’t for one second think that he might be plagued by guilt for the pain his lies and deeds had inflicted on the public.

Of course he wouldn’t resign. If we need a reminder that he thinks the rules don’t apply to him we need only look to the series of unforced errors that earned him the title of lawmaker-turned-lawbreaker.

This afternoon, Mr Johnson will address the House of Commons. He has promised to "set the record straight" on the events that led to him being fined by the Metropolitan Police.

We know what to expect from that statement. We’ll see faux-contrition and the minimisation of the scandal down to the minutes he spent at his birthday bash and how many pieces of cake he did or didn’t eat.

He’ll spend a lot of time saying not very much at all and certainly nothing we haven’t already heard before. His lips will manage to say sorry but his heart won’t be in it.

We can predict how his House of Commons statement will go because we know him well by now.

It’s not difficult to imagine what he is thinking at any given moment or what his next move will be because we know that his driving motivation is always, without exception, the advancement of his own self-interest.

It’s as if there is a small window into his brain and once you clear a path through the pound signs, half-naked women and grand self-portraits you can see the cogs clearly whirring away.

This is in stark contrast to Nicola Sturgeon. She is as recognisable as Mr Johnson and, like him, even enjoys first-name status with her supporters.

But her life outside of politics is private. We don’t know much about her beyond what she chooses to share.

We know that she enjoys reading and was shy as a child. Hold the front page.

The First Minister’s friends and family don’t share her secrets with the media. She doesn’t have a list of enemies and former lovers ready to appear on Sky News at a moment’s notice.

Her inner circle is tight and you get the sense that it would take more than flattery to be welcomed into it. That is entirely normal in politics. The same could be said of Theresa May, Douglas Ross, Gordon Brown and the overwhelming majority of party leaders.

Mr Johnson is the exception, not the rule.

We know more about his early life, career path and sexual predilections than we could ever want to.

Partygate forced us to examine, once again, one of the core tenants of his personality: the fact that he is a serial liar.

But as we analyse what is likely to happen next, we seem to have forgotten some of the others.

As well as being a liar, the Prime Minister is also lazy, tight-fisted and quick to anger.

While we have yet to see him be held properly accountable for his behaviour, it is at least reassuring to know that he must be having a thoroughly miserable time right now.

He is Prime Minister during a time of crisis. Coronavirus kicked things off and now he has a cost of living crisis to deal with as well as the war in Ukraine and the constant threat of a no-confidence motion.

We know that he constantly complains of being "skint". Not using a hot water bottle to stay warm and eating dry pasta for dinner skint, you understand. But the kind of skint that greedy rich people feel afflicted by. Namely, he’s not as loaded as some of the Russian billionaires he hangs out with.

While most of us could only dream of the £160k Mr Johnson earns as Prime Minister, he knows that his earnings once he has left office will eclipse that.

Theresa May, a woman so dull even midges avoid her orbit, has made more than £1 million on the after-dinner speaking circuit since leaving office.

When Mr Johnson jumps or is pushed, he knows he will be in for a bumper pay day. He’ll be vastly richer than he is now and free from the responsibilities that, in theory at least, come with high office.

As we begin what is sure to be another bruising week for the Prime Minister, nobody expects him to announce a shock resignation out of a sense of duty or responsibility. But it’s not entirely implausible that a less shocking resignation could come further down the line.

Self-interest is Mr Johnson’s driving motivator.

He will only stay on as Prime Minister for as long as it is in his best interests to do so.

If Conservative MPs continue to sit by and watch as he tears up all constitutional conventions, we may find ourselves in the bizarre situation where Mr Johnson reaches his own personal tipping point before they do.

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