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MORAG LINDSAY: What does a politician have to do round here to resign?

Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson are both riding out this political scandal.
Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson are both riding out this political scandal.

Who remembers when a political scandal still counted for something?

When they had a beginning, a middle and an end?

The star – usually male, bonus points if they happened to be a poster boy for ‘family values’ – would be caught in a compromising position. A brawl, a fling, a tabloid sting.

A day or two of black burning shame would follow.

And then our villain would do the decent thing and fall on his sword.

Done, dusted, justice done. Next please.

Even the resignation announcement had a comforting familiarity.

A sad-faced politician, clad in slacks and golf club sweater and flanked by a sad wife and sad kids, would read from a prepared statement at the garden gate.

Camera shutters whirred and clicked. Reporters’ shouted questions went unanswered. And then, lynch mob appeased, he’d stroll sadly back to his stockbroker belt mansion to make a start on writing his best-selling memoirs and juggling those lucrative after-dinner speaker bookings.

David Mellor, Cecil Parkinson, Jeffrey Archer. Your boys took a helluva beating.

Now though, the agony drags on and on interminably. And shame never seems to figure at all.

Partygate penalties but the party’s not over

I’m thinking, of course, (but not exclusively) of Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak.

The occupants of Number 10 and Number 11 were both fined for attending a lockdown-busting birthday bash in this week’s installment of the tired old soap opera known as Partygate.

David Mellor resigned from John Major’s government when his affair with actress Antonia de Sancha sparked a political scandal. Photo: Shutterstock.

Boris Johnson is now the first sitting prime minister to be found to have broken the law.

And it’s getting hard to tell where one political scandal ends and another one starts.

But is he resigning? Is he hell.

Rishi Sunak is another whose star is somewhat tarnished.

His Partygate fine followed days of anger about his wife’s non-domicile status, which permitted her to avoid millions of pounds in UK taxes while his government presided over the biggest cost of living crisis in living memory.

No one’s tipping Dishy Rishi for PM any more.

And the optimist in me let out a little gasp when someone suggested he might resign in order to spend more time with his vast personal fortune, thus shaming Boris Johnson into following suit.

But no. That’s not how these things work any more.

No shame means no consequences. And it turns out that’s a real power move.

Political scandal on a smaller stage

It’s not just a Westminster phenomenon either.

The SNP has resisted calls to sack one of its candidates in the upcoming Dundee City Council election after she admitted shouting abuse at the Pope and describing 9/11 as an “inside job”.

Siobhan Tolland is standing in Lochee – an area once known as Little Tipperary because of its strong Irish and Catholic roots.

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross has been blasted for defending the reselection of Angus Tory councillor Derek Wann, who was unmasked as an anti-SNP Twitter troll.

Another Angus candidate Serena Cowdy will stand for the SNP after she was named as the woman at the centre of a reported SNP love triangle involving Dundee and Western Isles MPs Stewart Hosie and Angus MacNeil.

Elsewhere, Margaret Ferrier was accused of breaking lockdown rules long before it was fashionable.

She’s due to stand trial in August after prosecutors alleged she “wilfully exposed people to the risk of infection, illness and death” by travelling from Glasgow to London. She’s still an independent MP though.

Stewart Hosie and Serena Cowdy.

Alex Cole-Hamilton was appointed Scottish Liberal Democrat leader after the release of a video that showed him mouthing swearies at children’s minister Maree Todd during a Holyrood committee.

I could go on. But when the only example you can suggest of someone doing the right thing is Matt Hancock, you know you’re in the Upside Down.

Donald Trump – the politician who refused to resign

As with a great many things, I blame Donald Trump for neutering the political scandal.

Observers said the reality TV tycoon was finished when recordings of him discussing grabbing women by the pussy emerged during his 2016 election run.

Shameless: Did Donald Trump lower the bar for other politicians? Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire.

It would have ended anyone else’s prospects. But he rode it out.

And it set the scene for four years in office featuring career-ender after career-ender, interspersed with a bit of light facism and a complete absence of shame.

Remind you of anyone Boris?

What a shame we’ve lost our sense of shame

Shame can be a horrible thing.

I could conjure occasions from my past that make me blush to my roots and want to crawl under the nearest rock and die.

I’m sure we all could.

But shame serves a purpose too.

Some say absence of shame is one of the marks of a psychopath. And, for most of us, its presence can be a powerful motivator.

Acknowledging shame allows us to correct wrongs.

To make amends to people we have hurt or embarrassed.

To say sorry.  Learn from our mistakes. Grow into better people.

It’s a shame it seems to have lost all its currency in public life.