‘I was very busy. The party was crap. I’m sorry you’re angry. Now leave me alone.’ That was the gist of Boris’s statement about being fined for attending an event in Downing Street to celebrate his birthday.
A flustered-looking Prime Minister delivered the Partygate Declaration in a small, wood-panelled room with a nicely-lit painting behind him. Not a bad setting. It looked homely, low-key, reassuringly domestic. If he’d sat at a varnished desk flanked by a Union Jack and a Nato flag he’d have sent the wrong signal. And he delivered his mea culpa in a standing position, as if he were dealing with a minor office problem while hurrying to more important meetings elsewhere. This was not a great performance. Under-rehearsed, jerkily delivered, and with too many downward glances at an ill-concealed cheat-sheet.
Contrition was the key motif. ‘In a spirit of openness and humility, I want to be completely clear about what happened on that day.’
But there wasn’t much law-breaking, he claimed.
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