Boris Johnson again argued today that he had no idea he was at a party when he earned his fixed penalty notice.
Apparently the beer, cake, snacks and room full of people singing “Happy Birthday” didn’t give it away.
In Number 10, it seems, it doesn’t count as a party unless there’s a clown, a champagne pyramid and an intern being sick in the photocopier.
At least there was definitely a clown at Johnson’s birthday bash.
The Prime Minister optimistically combined his ‘apology’ with a lengthy anecdote about the man he met in Kyiv who thought he was a real stand up guy.
But that wasn’t enough to distract MPs from lining up to almost - but not quite, due to Commons rules - branding the PM a lying liar who just won’t stop lying.
“We can’t possibly hold a leadership contest now,” loyal Tories moaned.
“Don’t you know there’s a war on?”
Of course, if they’d held a contest in January when the worst of Partygate came out, they’d be dutifully defending the scandals of a different leader by now.
Perhaps for having a non-dom wife and a US green card. We’ll never know.
But even that would have been better than having to sit and watch as Keir Starmer ruthlessly dissected their guy in front of the nation.
The Labour leader branded the PM dishonest, disrespectful, out-of-touch, out-of-control, lacking in decency, honesty, integrity - and his apology a mealy-mouthed “joke.”
And not one Tory MP could really dispute any of it.
Grey-faced and hunched over like naughty schoolboys, the Tory backbenchers looked like it was finally dawning on them that the party might finally be over.
