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Sleaze then and now: what’s changed?
When the Tory government of the early ’90s was brought down by sleaze, the papers focused on the salacious and sexual. Those MPs who denounced the corporate gravy train too would only go on to ride it, remembers SOLOMON HUGHES

BORIS JOHNSON’S problem with lockdown-breaking parties and other scandals is being widely compared to the “sleaze scandals” that helped bring down John Major in the 1990s.

In the words of an Express headline: “Tories on brink after ‘build-up of sleaze’ mirrors 90s downfall.”

The many interlocking scandals contributed a lot to Major losing the 1997 election.

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