QUESTION Time caused a stir on social media on Thursday night as The Telegraph's Tim Stanley made the case for Boris Johnson to "pull off one last great con".
His comments came as the panel were discussing the need for displays of integrity in public life, with panel members attributing varying weight to its value.
Stanley opined that "he may technically be a conman and he might be the bad guy but you want to see if he gets away with it and how he did it".
I am just so embarrassed pic.twitter.com/lDtHPqTjqk
— Hannah Rose Woods (@hannahrosewoods) February 4, 2022
In this metaphor, one could only assume that Boris Johnson would hold as much disdain for the British public as Danny Ocean did for Terry Benedict.
Stanley also said that, while integrity in public life was "plainly" important, Boris Johnson was a man who "got things done", referencing Brexit and the vaccine rollout.
He applied this paradox to Theresa May who, in his words, was a "paragon of morality" but was "rubbish at the job". This was followed by the example of Tony Blair who was directed by a "religious morality" and yet took the country to war.
It is then hardly surprising that Scottish independence, as an alternative to the binary choice between morality and performance offered by Westminster, has garnered the support of so many Scots.
READ MORE: Question Time to host entirely unvaccinated audience tonight in London
Professor Robin Shattock, a world expert on immunology, said "integrity matters and so does the way people behave" and refusal of the vaccine could be attributed to "an issue of trust and who you trust to give you a truthful picture of the situation".
“Integrity matters and so does the way people behave...it’s made it a lot harder to communicate the core messages that people need to hear”@robin_shattock says that integrity plays a big part in whether people believe the Covid messaging. #bbcqt pic.twitter.com/qBIDgIdfuQ
— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) February 3, 2022
Considering Shattock's comments, it may be of no surprise that Scotland's government has presided over the highest vaccination rate across the four nations of the UK.
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