You could tell that Boris Johnson thought he had just about got away with it. The last prime minister’s questions before the February recess safely negotiated. Two whole weeks ahead in which he could try to stop his backbenchers from thinking about parties and get them to focus instead on why they may possibly want him to remain as their leader. An uphill struggle, admittedly. But at least he had bought himself some time. Right now, every day longer he remained in Downing Street was a bonus.
The guilty smirk had been replaced by a wide grin. The toddler haircut ruffled totally out of place. The bullshit meter off the scale. The bouncing up and down as he waved his arms excitedly. All was well with the world. Well enough, anyway.
True, it hadn’t gone wholly to plan. After announcing the end of Covid – come the end of the month, he wasn’t that bothered if people lived or died from the disease – Big Dog had rather come unstuck when Keir Starmer had asked him about Kwasi Kwarteng’s fraud gaffe. Saying he was tough on fraudsters when he had just written off £4.3bn in Covid loans that had been scammed off the government wasn’t entirely convincing.
And the Labour leader had also made him look stupid by pointing out he hadn’t really understood the chancellor’s loan-shark scheme to lend money to the energy companies that was then clawed back over the next five years. Only a fool would expect him to know the details of his own policies. And come to think of it, where was the chancellor? Normally he was by his side, but today Rishi Sunak had deliberately placed himself at least six places away. Carefully avoiding the scene of the crime and all that. Still, at least they no longer had to pretend to get on.
But the main thing was that it was over. Starmer hadn’t been at his sharpest and his six questions had now been and gone. And Johnson had survived mostly unscathed and could now operate on cruise control for the next 15 minutes. Then he would be out of the chamber. At least that was the plan until Fabian Hamilton got called to ask a question.
The Labour MP kept it short and sweet. The Daily Mirror had just published a photograph of the No 10 quiz night party in December 2020, with an open bottle of prosecco and a Boris who looked as if he had drunk most of it. Though he could also have been at the alcohol-based sanitiser. That would be hardcore. So how did the prime minister explain this one?
Tory MPs immediately grabbed their phones to check out the photo. Nadhim Zahawi was devastated. Last year he had insisted the quiz couldn’t have been a party because there had been no booze. So now he just looked a prize idiot. He should have known that when Big Dog had assured him it had been a staff training seminar, it was a lie.
“He is completely in error,” mumbled The Suspect. What the error was, exactly, he didn’t say. Instead his florid complexion turned pasty white. Not because he knew precisely what was in the photo, but because he didn’t. There were so many pictures of him at parties that it was hard to keep track of what was what. Was this the one in which he was sweating heavily, stripped to the waist, while forming a conga with other members of staff? Or was it the one where he was dribbling while lying unconscious in the corner with red wine stains all over his shirt?
Then a further thought struck him. If the Met had already seen this picture of what looked like a party and had decided it didn’t meet their prosecution threshold, then the other 299 photos of the 12 parties they were investigating must be damning. Or what if this was one of the photos he had so far managed to keep away from the police’s prying eyes? Suddenly, his idea to have a vanity snapper record his every imperial move didn’t seem quite so good. Though for the first time the country was getting value for money for him. He was so busted.
Originally he had insisted the rules had been followed at all times. Then that he had been sickened and furious that various members of staff had been partying. Then that he had been at the parties that weren’t parties but work events. Now we had reached the point where The Suspect wasn’t going to resign even if he was found guilty and fined. Hell, he could do what he liked. Nobble the police. Have Sue Gray whacked. Top of the world, Ma!
Thereafter The Suspect rather fell apart. He trotted out the usual lies about the cost of living, tax rises, employment and Brexit but his heart wasn’t really in it. He seemed curiously passionless. He didn’t even really quibble when Labour’s Ruth Jones said there was a similarity between him having got Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe condemned to an extended prison sentence and his Jimmy Savile comments that had incited the harassment of the Labour leader.
Rather he just pretended it was nothing to do with him. He wasn’t there. He couldn’t have done it. It wasn’t his fault if people kept on misconstruing what he said. Such bad luck that it keeps happening to him. The same with the accident-prone Guto Harri. Who could have predicted he might need security vetting over Huawei? He was even lulled into agreeing with the catatonically stupid Natalie Elphicke that the lorry queues near Dover were all down to Brussels bureaucracy. One day she’ll wonder why Kent wasn’t a car park when the UK was part of the EU.
The Suspect dived for the exit. To be mobbed by his new team of four permanent private secretaries. All of whom had been chosen for their lack of discrimination, personality and intellect. “You were brilliant,” they said in unison. For a moment, Johnson revelled in the flattery. Then he spotted the long faces and the lack of support elsewhere on his own benches and remembered he was on borrowed time.
An evening with Marina Hyde and John Crace
Join Marina Hyde and John Crace looking back at the latest events in Westminster. On Monday 7 March 8pm GMT | 9pm CET | 12pm PST | 3pm EST. Book tickets here
