Russia’s Rich Hunt for New Homes

Government officials come and go, always, but Boris Johnson’s government is bleeding them. Notably ethics advisers, and that’s probably as telling as it sounds. “Lord Geidt, a former private secretary to the Queen, announced his departure in a terse statement that blindsided No 10,” reported The Times of London. “Appearing before MPs on Tuesday, he said that he had been ‘frustrated’ by Johnson’s approach to the revelations of Downing Street parties during the lockdowns, adding that resignation was ‘one of the rather blunt, but few, tools available to an independent adviser.’… The prime minister is likely to struggle to replace Geidt, who has quit after 14 months.” Geidt’s ethics predecessor, Sir Alex Allan, lasted 16 months.

Johnson needs to replace Geidt quickly, but, at this point, would you take the job? “Many plausible candidates,” noted the newspaper, would not want to. The Labour deputy Angela Rayner told The Times, “The prime minister has now driven both of his own handpicked ethics advisers to resign in despair.... How can anyone believe he is fit to govern?”