Alastair Campbell lays into Boris Johnson on BBC Question Time, saying he has ‘no moral compass’

Alastair Campbell has received widespread support after slamming Boris Johnson over his lack of “moral compass”.

Speaking on BBCQuestion Time, Tony Blair’s former director of communications condemned the government for its handling of the Owen Paterson sleaze scandal and said Johnson consistently “breaks rules” of his own, showing he is “a bad man”.

He said:

“He breaks the rules on the Ministerial Code relentlessly.

“If the Prime Minister consistently, regularly, breaks the Ministerial Code why shouldn’t other ministers think they can do exactly the same and get away with it?

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“We’ve just got to face up to the fact we - sadly, in my view - have elected a prime minister who has no moral compass whatsoever.

“I speak as someone who has known him probably for longer than anybody else on this panel.”

Campbell added that senior Tories including former minister Matt Hancock have been dogged by scandals and that it was “humiliating for Britain” that Johnson was forced to deny that the country was “corrupt” at a Cop26 press conference this week.

He recommended that people watch a video made by activist Peter Stefanovic, which outlines times in which the prime minister has “lied” to parliament, and said it was wrong that Johnson whipped Tory MPs to change rules in the Paterson case.

“Unless and until the Conservative party face up to the fact that he is not, as Keir Starmer has said, ‘a trivial man’ he is actually a bad man, and until people face up to that, this country’s politics is going to be damaged, possibly beyond repair,” he said.

Responding to his comments, Campbell received widespread praise on social media:

However, some criticised him, saying he had huge influence in Blair’s government without being elected and pointed to a time in which he was previously accused of “sexing up” the intelligence dossier ahead of the Iraq war while he was Blair’s director of communications. He was later cleared.

Fellow panellist Tom Newton-Dunn, of Times Radio, also claimed the issue was “cross-party” and pointed to Starmer’s legal consultancy work soon after his election as an MP.

Elsewhere on the show, Campbell said Johnson “drives a horse and coach” through the Nolan principles which provide an ethical framework for public office holders to abide to “day after day after day after day”.

He said he didn’t have a problem with MPs having outside interest but added that if they want to have second jobs it would be more useful if they worked in “food banks” or in “charities”.

Meanwhile, he recently also received support after he appeared on Politics Live and said Johnson was doing “fundamental damage to our democracy” because of the Tory sleaze crisis.

Pressure on the Teflon PM continues to mount.