In hindsight, it probably was not the best of ideas to throw a boozy party for most of his MPs the night before Prime Minister’s Questions, even if he had strong-armed someone else into picking up the tab. Because the Boris Johnson that turned up in the chamber gave the appearance of either being out of his head on a combination of quaaludes and psychedelics or still desperately hungover. Either way, what we got was the Suspect at his most incoherent self.
Not that this seemed to bother any of the Tory backbenchers who appear supremely unworried both by the cost of living crisis or proof of criminality inside No 10. And by the fact that their leader can give effusive support to Tory MP Jamie Wallis, who had just revealed he had gender dysphoria, the day after he had opened his dinner party speech with a trans joke. No disconnect there.
They happily cheered whatever lies Boris chose to tell. And there were plenty of them; from the Tories having reduced the tax burden to Labour being hellbent on taking the UK back into both lockdown and the EU.
Keir Starmer was also having a bad day. His questions lacked their usual focus and Johnson was able to get away more easily than usual without answering anything directly. Time and again, the Labour leader was unable to pin the greased piglet down. He could not even really make Partygate count, despite the Suspect continuing to insist that no lockdown rules had been broken in No 10. No matter that the police have issued 20 fixed penalty notices and counting. The closest anyone got to unsettling Johnson was Labour’s Sarah Champion when she asked him how he slept at night. The answer being that he gets pissed at parties. Or by himself.
It was more of the same when the Suspect appeared before the liaison committee – the parliamentary supergroup of select committee chairs – midway through the afternoon, only rather more soporific. The hangover hadn’t gone away and it was all Johnson could do not to doze off. The effect was clearly contagious. Most of the committee chairs were also struggling to stay awake and the session was catatonically dull.
For a brief moment at the start, things had looked rather more promising when committee chair Clive Betts – deputising for Bernard Jenkin who had Covid: a loss to comedy if nothing else, as no one takes himself more seriously than Bernie – ripped up the schedule and allowed Pete Wishart and Catherine McKinnell to ask questions on Partygate. So were you one of the 20 to receive a fixed penalty notice, Wishart enquired. The Suspect toyed with the toddler haircut and forced one eye half open. “I’m sure you would know if I were,” he mumbled.
After that it was all downhill. Wishart continued to rattle through his questions. Could any prime minister survive being busted and found guilty? Was breaking the ministerial code a resigning matter? Would he accept that issuing FPNs was proof that criminality had taken place? Could he explain why his answers on parties had changed from “They never took place” to “I was outraged that other people had been to lockdown parties” to “I didn’t realise I was breaking the law”?
To every question, the Suspect pleaded the 5th amendment. “No comment,” he said repeatedly. It was like an episode of Line of Duty. Johnson could not possibly say anything because he did not know how much dirt the police had on him. So it was best to say nothing for fear of further incriminating himself. He would be very happy to come back to the liaison committee at a later date when the police had convicted him. Or not. He didn’t sound like a man who was overly concerned one way or another. No one really expected him to tell the truth – even Dominic Raab, the deputy prime minister, was now admitting Johnson could only tell the truth “to the best of his ability”. Which was a very low bar.
The point was further made when McKinnell asked how he felt about a petition calling for lying to the commons to be made a criminal offence. The Suspect shook his head. He tried to tell the truth, he said. But he just could not prevent the lies from spewing out of his mouth. He had already forgotten the lies he had told during PMQs. And he was definitely not responsible for any future lies that he would tell that afternoon. Like saying to Stephen Timms that he had corrected a previous lie about the employment figures. Or that he would just lapse into fantasy about how there were now 1.3 million people fewer in absolute poverty – which just so happened to be the exact number of people thinktanks had predicted would be tipped into absolute poverty as a result of his government’s tax hikes.
The rest of the session was devoted to Ukraine and the cost of living and proved to be spectacularly unrevealing. The highlights were Bill Wiggin, who has just come back from an expenses paid trip to Qatar, asking for more visas for, er, Qataris and Neil Parish wanging on for a full minute and a half about fertiliser. It was comedy gold. The Suspect tried to look interested and ended up promising both men the earth, as he had with all the other select committee chairs.
Then that’s how Johnson operates. It’s classic Boris. Drag everyone down to your level. Keep the waters as muddy as possible. That way no one can see your own shit.
