BORIS Johnson has told of how “miserable” the partygate scandal has been for those in Government while being interviewed by Mumsnet.
While explaining he was “surprised and taken aback” to have received a Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN) Johnson was interrupted by his interviewer who told him that he had lost the trust of the people.
The Prime Minister replied: “Let’s see about that and, yeah, I’m not going to deny the whole thing hasn’t been a totally miserable experience for people in government and we’ve got to learn from it and understand the mistakes we made and we’ve got to move forward.”
Later on in the interview, Johnson was teased about the presence of the cake at the event that he was fined for amid the partygate scandal.
Johnson was asked to name his favourite biscuit, and if he “preferred cake” now, to which the Prime Minister echoed his sentiment on the event being “miserable”.
He responded: “If you’re talking satirically about that miserable event whose picture appeared on the front pages, no cake was consumed by me. I can tell you that much.”
Johnson has been under intense scrutiny in the wake of the publication of the Sue Gray report which has led to a steady stream of letters of no confidence being handed into the 1922 committee.
One MP cited Johnson’s explanation to the Commons for his part in the Downing Street parties as the reason for writing a letter of no confidence, saying that it was “deeply disappointing”.
However, during his interview with Mumsnet, Johnson took a facetious tone to the scandal by quoting children’s author Dr Seuss.
He said: “This was no time for play, this was no time for fun, this was no time for games, there was work to be done, which is our motto in Number 10. There’s work to be done."
This follows news that an operation to "save Boris" has been launched from Downing Street, with the Prime Minister personally calling MPs asking for their support.
