The Tories are being led by “a tag team of scandal” the SNP has claimed as it widened the partygate attack against Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak.
Ian Blackford, the SNP Westminster leader, said the UK Government could not go on being led by the pair who were both fined for attending a rule-breaking party in Downing Street during lockdown.
At Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons Blackford said no government can be led by a PM in “a constant state of crisis to save his own skin”.
He added: "The UK government is led by a tag team of scandal, a Prime Minister who cannot be trusted with the truth and a chancellor who cannot be trusted with his taxes.”
Blackford said the public were counting the cost of a “Tory made cost of living crisis every day” and could not afford to keep the Prime Minister in office “one minute longer”.
Johnson swatted away the attack with a sally against the SNP policy to get rid of the nuclear deterrent while the country needed to face up to “aggression from Vladimir Putin.”.
Labour’s Keir Starmer fared no better with a second go at Johnson over his refusal to accept responsibility for breaking the lockdown rules he had set himself.
Starmer accused Johnson of opting to “slander decent people” by attacking the BBC and the criticisms of the Archbishop of Canterbury over the new asylum deportation policy while in a private meeting with Tory MPs.
The Labour leader said the PM lacked the “backbone to repeat it in public”.
He told the Commons: “He never takes responsibility for his words or actions. They were all there. The Prime Minister also accused the BBC of not being critical enough of Putin.
“Would the Prime Minister have the guts to say that to the face of Clive Myrie, Lyse Doucet and Steve Rosenberg, who have all risked their lives day in, day out on the frontline in Russia and Ukraine uncovering Putin’s barbarism?”
Johnson replied: “If (Sir Keir) wants to join the Conservative Party and come and listen to the meetings of the Conservative Party he’s welcome to do it though, as I say, I think he’s a Corbynista in an Islington suit.”
“But I said nothing of the kind and I have the highest admiration as a former journalist for what journalists do. I think they do an outstanding job. I think he should withdraw what he just said – it has absolutely no basis or foundation in truth.”
Starmer countered: “That’s how he operates: a mealy mouthed apology when the cameras roll, a viscous attack on those who tell the truth as soon as the cameras are off. Slander decent people in a private room, let the slander spread without the backbone to repeat it in public.”
Johnson was asked repeatedly about the partygate scandal by opposition backbenchers are repeated his apology for breaking the lockdown rules.
SNP MP Richard Thomson called on the "Pinocchio Prime Minister to back his bags and go" but was asked by the Speaker to withdraw his unparliamentary remark.
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