Facing the prime minister’s questions in the face of evidence that he misled MPs about a party in Downing Street last December, Boris Johnson did what happened naturally. The Potemkin investigation was announced by his cabinet secretary Simon Case and he threw his most loyal aides under a bus.
“I have been reassured time and time again since these allegations emerged that there is no party and that the Covid rules have not been violated. This I have repeatedly affirmed. But I have asked the Cabinet Secretary to establish all the facts and report back as soon as possible. It goes without saying that if the violation is By these rules, there will be disciplinary action for all those involved,” he said.
The absurdity of the order to investigate whether there was a party in the house in which the Prime Minister lives and works does not matter. The reality of the investigation has allowed Johnson and his beleaguered journalist team to dismiss questions about the party itself and their statements about it over the past week or so.
The seats behind Johnson were full but silent as the Conservative MPs sat expressionless, some with their arms folded as Johnson spoke, others looking down in apparent embarrassment. When the prime minister tried to rally them by accusing Labor leader Keir Starmer of politics with the coronavirus, they ignored him.
Starmer said millions of people who followed the rules while partying in Downing Street now believed the prime minister was treating them as idiots and had lied to them, and mocked Johnson’s announcement of an internal investigation.
We have all seen a video of the Prime Minister’s staff, including his personal spokesperson [talking about a party]. They knew there was a party, they knew it was against the rules, they knew they couldn’t admit it and they thought it was funny. «It’s clear what happened,» he said. The Prime Minister was caught red-handed. Why doesn’t he finish the investigation now once he’s admitted? «
Sitting grimly behind Johnson, Conservative MPs knew Starmer was right, just as they knew how angry many of their constituents were about the video and the idea of the rule-makers celebrating while making sacrifices to stick to the rules. But these MPs knew all about Johnson’s indifference to the truth when they made him their leader, and even as they wriggled on the green benches on Wednesday, they knew they chose him not in spite of it but because of it.