Johnson ends painful campaign with usual bad gags and lies | John Crace
There was no sense of a triumphant homecoming in a depressing finale
Normally it’s Dominic Raab who keeps turning up at crime scenes. There’s something about unsolved murders he finds irresistible. But for his last rally of the election campaign, Boris Johnson couldn’t stop himself from returning to the Olympic Park in London. The location of the stadium that ran hopelessly over budget and still costs the country £20m a year thanks to Boris negotiating a piss-poor deal with West Ham. The venue that he recently insisted had launched a nationwide shagfest. It hadn’t.
Half of the Copper Box Arena had already been partitioned off, but there were still plenty of empty spaces among the 700 or so Tory activists who had been bussed in for the occasion. These were what was left of the hard core – the true believers – but even they had been caught up in the general sense of fatigue and disenchantment. Minders would occasionally prod them to raise placards saying “Get Brexit Done” and “Vote Conservative” and urge them to shout some support, but there was no sense of this being a triumphant homecoming. The Tories may still get a majority but it will have been given grudgingly. There is no love left for UK politics. Just despair.