Sleaze, partygate and Covid combined to deliver the PM a week from hell, and now his MPs are openly talking of replacing him
On 19 December last year Boris Johnson appeared in Downing Street to tell the nation more bad news about Covid-19 that would affect the plans of millions of people at Christmas. “Yesterday afternoon I was briefed on the latest data showing the virus spreading more rapidly in London and the south-east of England than would be expected,” he said.
Reading from a script that, a year on, seems depressingly familiar, he said a new strain of Covid-19 (which would become known as the Alpha variant) was taking hold and was thought to be up to 70% more transmissible than the old one.
