BORIS JOHNSON could not even manage a resignation speech. Instead, he grudgingly offered a notice to quit at a later date in an outburst which was full of the bombast, self-regard and refusal to acknowledge facts that are his trademark. It is right to say “good riddance” to Boris the Brief.

What now for the huge number of his colleagues now pressing themselves forward as the next potential leader of their party and Prime Minister? The situation reaches farcical proportions, with many of them barely known even to other Tory backbenchers and others who have besmirched their office through a combination of rank incompetence and completely reactionary politics.

The argument is made that there is no need for a general election with a change of Prime Minister, as we elect parties in this country, not presidents. Precedent is also cited, as every Prime Minister since Callaghan either came to office without an election, or departed without one.

But repeating undemocratic manoeuvres now is completely detached from the popular will of the voters. After the events of the last few days, and the record of this government since 2019, there is no question that they are massively unpopular. One recent poll puts the Tories on 31 per cent, so fewer than one in three voters now supports this government.

These are not “mid-term blues,” as the Tories’ own decision to oust a sitting Prime Minister testifies. The government’s unpopularity is of its own making, and all the central policies were supported by the entire parliamentary party, including those now vying for the leadership.

Our politics has in any event become more presidential over time, beginning with Tony Blair. In terms of popular perception and media coverage when it comes to elections, there are only party leaders. And specifically in this case, it was Johnson’s proven ability to cheerfully and repeatedly lie to the public which got him the job.

The NHS is still waiting for the extra £350 million per week, just as there is still no levelling up, and the protective ring around the care homes is as much a fiction as the 40 new hospitals.

The 2019 Tory victory was built on a series of lies. Most of them are well-known. They include the sunlit uplands of Brexit, “getting Brexit done” when they are busy undoing the Protocol, the false plans for the NHS and public services, the character assassination of Jeremy Corbyn, the list could go on. All of them without exception have proven to be untrue.

Some might argue that all governments lie. As we found with the arguments for the Iraq War, it is certainly true that many governments have been willing to go to extraordinary levels of deception to push through disastrous policies. That cannot be denied.

But what is different this time is that the entire strategic direction of this government is based on the lie that they are or will produce economic prosperity. It is only a few months ago that Johnson was dismissing questioning about the exceptionally high Covid death toll under his government and cancer survival rights being among the lowest in Europe.

His reply was that the metric for success was wage growth. Well, we know that happened to that “success,” yet the Tory caravan moves on without the liar-in-chief.

The reality is that the prosperity they talk of is a myth, and the majority of the public knows it. They can see it every day, with shortages in the shops, anti-theft devices on supermarket butter, and they can see it in their energy bills. They can see through the deception.

Since austerity was first imposed in mid-2010, the British economy has slowly stumbled from one crisis to another. The pandemic was never addressed as a crisis of public health, but as a crisis of private-sector business. The lethal irony is that they cratered the economy too as the workforce has shrunk.

Similarly, and completely related, the global price shock coming out of lockdown is being used as an austerity weapon and a chance to lower real wages by letting prices rip, while raising taxes to boot.

Government policy is that companies can raise profits by letting prices balloon, but firefighters are offered 2 per cent, and a pay rise for nurses of 3 per cent is unaffordable without cuts in other areas of NHS spending.

The claims for prosperity, for “levelling up” and “building back better” are a hoax on the British public while living standards are deliberately being pushed lower. The response of these Tories was to lift the energy price cap and to raise National Insurance contributions, while providing a tax cut for bankers, allowing new record bonus payments.

This is a political choice and there are alternatives. In France, the government capped the allowed rise in energy bills at just 4 per cent. And Macron, who is certainly no leftwinger, has been obliged to nationalise the remainder of EDF, the main energy company.

The political project of this government runs in exactly the opposite direction to its own claims. When the then Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced these tax measures in March, he was cheered to the echo by the entire Tory parliamentary party.

There is no doubt too that the all the candidates for Tory leadership support these measures. Their debate is likely instead to focus on how to outlaw strikes, more draconian legislation, as well as fictional new versions of “global Britain.”

Unfortunately, lying about what you intend to do in office has become more prevalent in British politics generally. So, one of the reasons Mick Lynch from the RMT has achieved almost instant heroic status is because he has refused to go along with the prevailing fictions of British politics, has told the truth about his members’ actual pay and conditions and called out lies when they have been put to him.

More importantly, words have been backed up by deeds. In striking against job losses, for safe conditions and decent pay, it is possible the RMT may have lit a touch paper igniting resistance to this rotten government.

It seems probable, given the intensity of the economic crisis and the huge impositions being imposed on workers in both the private and public sectors, that there will be many disputes across many sectors.

This is where the real opposition to this government is emerging, and Labour politicians and others must do everything they can to support it.

Diane Abbott is MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington.