The PM apparently went down a storm behind closed doors as he sought to rally the troops, so why was he such a dud in the house?
Here’s the thing. You won’t find any sentient being who will tell you anything other than that Boris Johnson was a total disaster during his Commons statement on the Sue Gray report on Monday. Narcissistic, tin-eared, deceitful and graceless would be some of the kinder descriptions of his behaviour.
And yet. Little more than an hour later, Big Dog was locked in a committee room in Portcullis House with almost the entire Tory parliamentary party, giving the performance of his life. At least that’s how those backbenchers – surrounded by ministers and party whips – who were present, chose to report it. MPs who had gone into the room as sceptics left an hour later totally charmed. Clearly you had to have been there to fully appreciate his killer reference to himself as Othello. Though hopefully someone later explained to him and Carrie what happened to Desdemona. The Suspect clearly has a lot of work to do before starting on his Shakespeare biography. Like reading some of the plays.
