Katy Balls Katy Balls

The jury’s still out for Boris Johnson among MPs

When Michael Gove addressed Tory MPs on Wednesday evening at a meeting of the 1922 committee, he began with a tribute to Boris Johnson. After a rocky few days for the Prime Minister in which he has apologised to the House for attending a drinks party in the Downing Street garden during lockdown and faced calls from his own side to resign, Gove took the opportunity to remind MPs of Johnson’s selling points.

The levelling up secretary told MPs that their leader ‘gets the big calls right’ citing Brexit, vaccines and Johnson’s recent decision not to bring in extra Covid restrictions over Christmas. Given that Gove was one of the ministers calling for more restrictions, he joked that it was fair to say he sat at the ‘bedwetter end of the spectrum’: unlike the Prime Minister who had been vindicated in ignoring his advice.

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