Boris and #Partygate: why do I not care?

Should we feel guilty if we aren't bothered about his apparent lies?

There is this weird thing about politics: that when you feel someone is fundamentally on your side, pretty much anything goes for them. They could go on a stabbing frenzy through Central London and you’d seek excuses, forgive them and look to sweep the whole thing under the carpet.

I exaggerate. A lot. But you know what I mean.

We see it on all sides of politics all the time. We practice it ourselves in our working and personal lives. When someone we depend on for stuff that we want and like does something bad, our immediate instinct is to cover it up and thereby protect them. Unless we are amazingly principled, consistent and serious about both (and therefore probably quite insufferable), this is what we will then do, albeit it often means shutting up and trying to stop the word from spreading rather than actively doing stuff.