Can Boris weather this new storm?

The row over MPs’ outside interests has landed Boris Johnson in one of the most uncomfortable positions a prime minister can be in: he has to choose between being on the wrong side of public opinion and his own backbenchers. What makes matters worse is that his own misjudgment got him into this position. Even a ministerial loyalist admits that: ‘It’s up there with the biggest mistake.’

The government’s attempt to block the standards committee’s guilty verdict against Owen Paterson and change the rules surrounding MPs’ conduct was so brazen that it has, inevitably, created a row about second jobs for MPs. If Paterson had, as the committee recommended, been suspended for 30 days, the government could have said that the system for regulating outside interests had worked and that would have been the end of the matter. Instead, the attempt to stop the verdict has led to questions about whether it is appropriate for MPs to be earning more than their parliamentary salary from their outside interests even when they aren’t lobbying ministers.