Sitting at the back of the public gallery watching Olly Robbins give his evidence to the foreign affairs select committee hearing on Tuesday felt horribly like the summer of 2022 all over again. Back then, the prime minister, Boris Johnson, had seen off numerous attacks on his integrity – most of them from Keir Starmer, for what it’s worth – mainly on the back of Partygate, but with the final blow being struck by the resignation of the little-known deputy chief whip after allegations of sexual misconduct.
The similarities are not lost on anyone like me who has witnessed all of this from relatively close quarters. In Johnson’s case, the main plank of his defence was either that he had been told nothing at all, or that what he was told (by officials or advisers) was selective at best. The trouble was that no one really believed him. He was PM and with that came the expectation that irrespective of the whys and wherefores, the buck had only one place to stop.
