“Better the devil you know, even if that’s a law-breaking, serial cheating charlatan” – Keir Mudie

Polls show Boris Johnson is hugely unpopular, but the Tories’ game plan now seems to be to make it appear that all politicians are cut from the same cloth.

I have only one thing on my mind this week as I have been struggling for days with an infected molar that is so painful I can only stand up for a few minutes at a time.

In the history of pain there has never been pain like this, although many people have called me and told me about the birth.

That always seemed easy to me, and nothing compared to it. Unless you give birth to a rhino. twin rhinos.

Four days for an emergency appointment, four days of self-medication with painkillers, eating only shredded corned beef and mashed potatoes, and drinking cheap Scotch.

To be fair, that’s not a million miles from my usual diet.

breakfast

Anyway, I wanted to speak on the state of NHS dentistry but the dentist who was due to see me tonight had a copy of this newspaper in his waiting room when I last visited, so I don’t want to say anything inappropriate before he gets out his instruments .

My Sunday at the moment consists of a breakfast of mud, watching the descent of Leeds, followed by a root canal at 5.50pm. Idyllic.

politics back then. I think the only thing knocking this week is still Partygate. And even the bookies think Mr Johnson got away with it.

There should be some Sue Gray this week, but even the Tories I speak to don’t think her long-awaited report will pack a punch.

More chances after the upcoming by-elections. Especially after news broke that Labor will be taking it easy and giving the Lib Dems a shot at the ‘Porno Neil’ by-election in Tiverton.

(Work source early call: “We’re not taking our foot off the gas. Work source after a few pints: “Yeah, we’re taking our foot off the gas.”)

Elsewhere, Mr. Starmer is doing a better job than Mr. Johnson, the numbers say, but he’s still not properly asserting himself.

Also, 26% of people think Mr Johnson is doing a good job of running our country and 55% think he is doing a good job of what is happening in Ukraine.

Which made me think that if Mr Johnson is better suited to the crisis over there, we should set up some sort of exchange program where we get Zelensky for a while and our guy gets to walk around with a Kalashnikov and a helmet .

Beyond that, the numbers were a mess. Mr Johnson is extremely unpopular, but Mr Starmer is not making enough ground.

whiskey

You know what? It could be the mix of whiskey and codeine, but I think this whole quagmire is more helpful to the Tories.

The conspiracy theorists might have been right. If they can show that Labor – and Mr Starmer in particular – are made of the same stuff as the Tories, you get a general sense of ‘You can’t trust politicians – they’re all the same’ and in this case they will. Wouldn’t voters rather stick with what they have than risk change?

Better the devil, you know, and so on.

Even if the devil you know is a law-breaking, serially cheating charlatan who’s mishandled crisis after crisis and can’t even pull a tie right.

Maybe that’s it. Makes Mr. Starmer’s pint and a curry even more important.