AMONG the many notable achievements of his time in Downing Street, Boris Johnson invented a new nickname for himself – Big Dog.

And they say that every dog has its day. So he’s had his.

Mr Johnson has at least seven children by at least three women – a similar record to Karen Matthews, the woman from Dewsbury who staged the kidnapping of her daughter in order to collect reward money.

Maybe he’s now stepping down to spend more time with his families.

That can only be good news, whoever succeeds him. To my mind he’s the worst prime minister we’ve ever had.

And that’s some triumph, because it’s a crowded field, with contenders such as John 'back to basics' Major and Neville 'peace in our time' Chamberlain.

He has knocked the previous worst prime minister of all time off the top spot.

That, historians generally agree, was Anthony Eden, who is remembered for encouraging Israel to invade Egypt so that Britain and France could wade in, pretending they were there to break up the fighting, and snatch back the Suez Canal.

He was famously derided by Aneurin Bevan, who said: “If Mr Eden is sincere in what he’s doing – and he may be – then he is too stupid to be prime minister.”

Instead of the Suez crisis we have other crises – rail strikes, cancellations and backlogs at airports, hospitals and law courts, inflation at a 40-year high of nine per cent, a crippling cost of living and, thanks to Brexit, economic growth of zero per cent and Scottish independence and the break-up of the UK a few stops down the line.

There’s only a certain amount you can blame on Covid or the war in Ukraine, and even then they’re no excuse.

His job was to deal with all these, not just blame them, as another predecessor, Harold Macmillan, understood.

When asked what might blow his government off course, he said: “Events, dear boy, events.”

It was always said that Johnson wanted to 'be' prime minister but didn’t particularly want to 'do' prime minister.

He liked the idea of the job, apart from the work. When asked to explain his desire to go into politics, he said: “They don’t put up statues to journalists.”

I doubt whether any are planned of him now.

And because he can’t or won’t do anything about our current problems, he hatched plans to distract us which he knew would play well in the right-wing national papers, such as abandoning the Northern Ireland protocol and endangering a fragile situation, privatising Channel 4, or deporting refugees to Rwanda, a country with a horrific human rights record.

Egged on by his henchman Dominic Cummings, he sacked experienced or intelligent people who thought Brexit might have been a bad idea, such as Ken Clarke and Rory Stewart.

In came a B-team of over-promoted mediocrities such as Jacob Rees-Mogg, Nadine Dorries and Liz Truss.

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But it’s his dishonesty that is perhaps worst. First he offered unconvincing excuses – that he went to a party but didn’t know it was party, or that he was warned an MP was an alleged sexual predator but promoted him because he forgot.

They’re just the most recent lies. He was sacked from The Times back in 1988 for making up quotes, and then moved to the Daily Telegraph, where he invented stories about bananas, coffins and prawn cocktail crisps.

Most famous of all was the lie on the bus during the 2016 Brexit campaign claiming that Britain would save £350 million a week by leaving the EU, which would be spent instead on the NHS.

But his personal life is just as relevant, whatever anyone argues.

During his second marriage to Marina Wheeler he had several affairs that became public knowledge.

One was with journalist Petronella Wyatt, who had an abortion. When that affair was publicised he dismissed the reports as 'a pyramid of piffle' – but they turned out to be true and he was sacked as shadow arts minister.

At the same time as his affair with Wyatt, Johnson was rumoured to be having an affair with another journalist, Anna Fazackerly, though it was never proven.

In 2009 there was an affair with arts consultant Helen Macintyre, with whom he fathered a child.

Marina Wheeler only divorced him when he took up with Carrie Symonds. And those are only the affairs we know about.

All this matters because it shows he is untrustworthy and dishonest. Anyone who commits adultery is – especially when they make a habit of it.

Is it too much to ask that we have an honest prime minister next?

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