Politicians say publicly that government should be about policies, not personalities.
Privately they say no such thing. When they are with each other they talk about little else but each other.
But then the performance of any government depends primarily on the quality of its performers. It is about their character and behaviour. Their honesty, openness, integrity.
They choose to stand for election so they can legislate on how the rest of us live our lives.
Our elected leaders are responsible for every aspect of them, from protecting our health to seeing off foreign enemies.
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They control our employment rights, legal rights, and human rights. They decide the money we get if we cannot work, taxes we pay when we do, and penalties we face for breaking laws they pass.
Voters therefore have every right to know what they need to know about those giving the orders.
While it is our votes which determine whether our leaders have their jobs and keep them, they are not delegates, but our representatives. We must rely on their judgement.
That is how democracy works. And that is why the Sunday Mirror tonight publishes details about Boris Johnson’s conduct the PM would prefer to keep under wraps.
Jennifer Arcuri says she was his lover for almost four years while he was London Mayor. Tonight she speaks extensively about that relationship for the first time.
In doing so she claims to provide insights into our Prime Minister’s character. His behaviour, honesty and integrity. The Independent Office for Police Conduct cleared Mr Johnson of any criminal wrongdoing.
The Greater London Authority may now wish to consider what she has to say for its own probe interrupted by the pandemic.
The GLA’s oversight committee must decide whether there was any breach of the Nolan Principles which govern the appropriate conduct of public figures.
And it is for everyone who reads her story and weighs her words to decide for themselves what bearing they have on Mr Johnson’s fitness for the office he holds. It is his judgement under the magnifying glass here.
This newspaper has criticised the PM for misjudging the pandemic contributing to the 127,000 deaths – for PPE failures, lockdown mistakes, care homes chaos, and the test and trace shambles.
But we have also praised him for the sensational delivery of 31 million Covid jabs.
Now the PM has the onerous task of steering us through what we hope will be the final stages of this pandemic. That requires our trust and his transparency.
So our revelations are not just a matter of public interest but of public confidence.
It is the duty of a free press to give those in power the scrutiny voters deserve, to hold them to the transparency to which they say they are committed, to shine a light into corners where pertinent details may otherwise remain hidden.
That is what the Sunday Mirror does today.
- Read Jennifer Arcuri's full story in the Sunday Mirror, in shops on Sunday.
