Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Boris thinks he can ride this scandal out

Boris Johnson has now apologised for receiving a fixed penalty notice for attending a lockdown-busting party. In a clearly very carefully scripted statement read to camera, the Prime Minister also made it clear he hadn’t thought he was breaking the rules by attending the gathering in the Cabinet Room, which lasted ‘less than ten minutes’. ‘I have to say it did not occur to me that this might have been a breach of the rules, he said. But, he added, ‘of course the police have found otherwise and I fully accept the outcome of their investigation’. He said he had ‘paid the fine and I once again offer a full apology’.

Johnson clearly thinks that his defence of inadvertently breaking the rules is sufficient for his party (though not good enough for the police). It would not have been a couple of months ago when the partygate was at its height.

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