His allies have threatened colleagues and the former PM’s statement was venomous. This doesn’t feel over …
There were surprises afoot on Wednesday – or privileges-committee-publication-day eve as we should call it – Nadine Dorries was planning to delay her exit from parliament in order to cause maximum embarrassment for Rishi Sunak, though she is frankly spreading her embarrassment so liberally and gaily that it’s hard to discern a target more specific than “her entire party”, or at a push “the species”. Sir Bernard Jenkin, meanwhile, had allegedly himself attended a party in December 2020, and should therefore recuse himself from a job that had already finished, according to Boris Johnson and his allies, so desperate that they were dredging up ideas that started, “first, go back in time”.
On Thursday morning, however, there were no surprises. The former prime minister had lied to parliament and nobody, anywhere, dropped their marmalade. There had just been so many spoilers: Johnson’s resignation letter at the end of last week, a howling and at times hilarious rebuttal of the lying he was about to be found guilty of; the many attacks on the personal probity of Harriet Harman, committee chair; and last but not least, Johnson’s long history of lying; so ceaseless, so well-documented, that if he hadn’t been lying about the parties, you’d have wondered whether he was feeling OK.
