Why does This England let Boris Johnson off so lightly?

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy With an ego as gargantuan as his obviously is, it must be highly flattering to Boris Johnson that no less a figure than Sir Kenneth Branagh was chosen to play him in This England, Sky’s new drama about the now former PM and the Covid crisis. Johnson should also be delighted – I’m sure he’s vain enough and has enough spare time to tune in – to see that the entire “Partygate” scandal has been omitted. It does, implicitly, feed one of the more favourable Johnson myths: that everything would have been fine if he’d managed to bring his former wife, Marina Wheeler, with him to Downing Street, instead of starting yet another family with a new young partner and thus draining his emotional energies still further. Less happily, the drama pre-empts the public inquiry into the UK’s Covid response by dumping blame for its early failures onto Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, and, to a much lesser degree, on Cummings and on Johnson himself.