Why the normal rules don't apply to Boris Johnson

One of Boris Johnson's masters at Eton once remarked that he thinks the rules don't apply to him.

It's a claim often made by the prime minister's political opponents - and some Tory MPs - too.

And it's a charge being levelled at Mr Johnson now after his last-minute snub to a committee of senior MPs, which his critics claim looks like a calculated bid to avoid tough questions on Brexit and other issues.

"It is unacceptable that you are refusing to be held to account," the liaison committee chair Sarah Wollaston told the PM angrily in a letter, responding to his scruffy hand-written note cancelling - for the third time - just hours before the meeting this time.

The latest row between the prime minister and parliament came amid a major row over a three-day committee stage on his Brexit bill, and just hours after only his second appearance at Prime Minister's Questions since taking office three months ago.

It was also a PMQs in which Mr Johnson was later accused of lying twice; first by claiming he won a majority in parliament in favour of his Brexit deal, and second by denying there will be some form of checks on the Irish border under his deal.

There is recent evidence of Mr Johnson's casual attitude to rules that most people abide by, not just in politics but in his personal life too.

Remember the photos of Mr Johnson's battered old car with unpaid parking tickets piled up against the windscreen, after his late night row with his girlfriend Carrie Symonds in her flat this summer?

The Times quoted a neighbour who claimed he regularly parked his car illegally outside the flat. They said: "It's got loads of parking tickets on it. He just leaves it here. He doesn't care."

That prompted a Financial Times journalist, Henry Mance, to recall: "I remember playing tennis in the park when Boris Johnson came on to the next door court.

"He was kicked off minutes later because he hadn't paid the £10 fee."

And only a fortnight ago, Charles Moore, who was Mr Johnson's editor at The Daily Telegraph, claimed in an interview with The Times that the future PM used to "wing it", revealing: "He was always late for all his columns. It was a nightmare."

Last month, in his Labour conference speech, Jeremy Corbyn declared of the PM: "His is a born-to-rule government of the entitled who believe that the rules they set for everyone else don't apply to them."

And on Mr Johnson's decision in August to suspend parliament, ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court, Mr Corbyn said: "He thought he could do whatever he liked just as he always does. He thinks he's above us all."

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In the past, Mr Johnson has been sacked from The Times for making up a quote and from the Tory front bench by then party leader Michael Howard for lying about an affair.

And as the Telegraph's Brussels correspondent, he was accused of making up stories; such as proposed EU ban on prawn cocktail crisps, for instance. Pretty sure they're still on sale!

Not that the Telegraph seemed to mind.

When Mr Johnson resigned from Theresa May's government, it was claimed he broke the ministerial code by resuming his column three days after he resigned, in defiance of the code's requirements to wait a month before accepting other posts.

Most Tory MPs don't seemed to mind Mr Johnson breaking or ignoring the normal rules of politics and life, however.

So long as he delivers a general election victory, they'll almost certainly forgive him anything.