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Boris Johnson may think that partygate is a laughing matter. Outraged voters don’t | Andrew Rawnsley
It is appalling enough that the police have found a pattern of criminality at the very heart of government. It is worse that the prime minister treats this scandal as a joke
He thinks he is going to get away with it. When Boris Johnson addressed a recent dinner with his parliamentary party, he poked fun at those Tory MPs who were so disgusted by partygate that they tried to remove him. The king of crass comedy quipped that they should be grateful that they did not live in Russia where Vladimir Putin has “nobody to write 54 letters to Sir Grahamski Bradyski”. He was especially mocking of those Conservative MPs who wrote to demand a confidence vote and then withdrew their letters after the invasion of Ukraine. These missives were “elastic – they go in and you can pull out”.
Just a few weeks ago, he stood on the precipice of losing the premiership. Someone who ought to know tells me that the number of letters submitted to Sir Graham got close to the threshold that would have triggered a confidence vote. Now the prime minister feels able to wine, dine and crack wise with his MPs. And to do so in the very same week that the Metropolitan police started issuing penalties for law-breaking at Number 10, imposing 20 fines in the first wave and with more expected to follow. It is appalling enough that the Met has found a pattern of criminality at the very heart of government. It is worse that the prime minister treats this as a laughing matter. One senior Tory present at the dinner says: “The number of jokes Boris devoted to partygate showed that he is either monumentally insensitive or monumentally self-confident.” Or both.
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